This is my attempt to give direction to an abstract chain of thought. Very different from the ones I usually write. I do not think many people would like it, but the topic is very close to my heart.
Sometimes we tend to ridicule some of the things that we see around. Eg. One of my friend resigned from a job at a big IT firm and within a month of that, she cancelled her resignation and joined the same firm. This whole saga looked to be a ridiculous decision to me. Sometimes, your mind is just not set to accept certain things. Another example would be a person who drinks only bottled mineral water wherever he goes. Although it might be a perfectly normal thing for him, for some reason the whole idea is very hard to digest.
Now that I have set up the base for discussion, lets drill in a bit deeper. We have theories about everything. Thousands and thousands of them, most of which we aren't ourselves aware of. Theories about things we know, theories about things we do not know. Theories about what's good, what's bad and what's ugly. Theories about how the air-conditioner works, about how to make the world a better place to live. Theories about abstract things.
Having theories is good. Even if we have to make assumptions about certain things in the process. If at some point, you think your theories are wrong, you can always correct them. That's what eventually happened to the theory of sun revolving around the earth''. It eventually got universally replaced with a complete 360 degree twist.
But as our theories get more and more concrete over a period of time, these raw theories turn into beliefs. Beliefs are more concrete and rigid versions of our theories. They are hard to shake. More often, it is easier to question our theories than to question our beliefs. For example, if you believe that god exists, it is really difficult to change that belief. Yes, it's not impossible, but its difficult. More difficult than changing your theories about how your bike works.
Back to the beginnings. When certain actions of people around you start falling in the bucket of absolute ridiculousness according to your beliefs, you start judging. He must be absolutely a nutcase to reject a Microsoft job offer to work in a small company with half the pay is what you end up thinking.
How does this problem solve? Does this even have a solution you wonder. Yes it does!
Every now and then you should look at your beliefs and examine them as raw theories. It encourages you to think. It sometimes ends up changing your beliefs that were build in the first place with a bag of theories made with the help of wrong assumptions. Or maybe end up adding your theory to another person's theory to make a whole new set of beliefs. That way, you would be more open to accepting the actions of people around you which you would not normally accept.
After writing this whole blog, i still somehow cannot in my mind approve of the mineral water drinking dude. But still, I know i tried!
