Over the weekend I was chatting with friends from childhood who, like me, had been teachers and then education administrators before retirement. When we were employed, our to-do-lists had many work-related items that were urgent and important - we had little time to stand and stare. After retirement there was freedom to do as we pleased and we had chosen different things as being urgent and important; we had developed different viewpoints and patterns of busy-ness. My preferred option was for large doses of the contemplative, “stand and stare”.
While we were chatting I noticed a personal tendency to simplify and polarise thought patterns into me/them; right/wrong; black/white. But, having noticed the tendency, there was a marked reduction in its power to commandeer the attention centre. I was thus more able to appreciate other points of view and to agree to disagree. We all were.
We could all state reasons for doing as we did. Upon reflection I personally noticed a mild whiff of cynicism directed at the various viewpoints, including my own; but, this was balanced on the positive side, by the virulent perfume of scepticism.
During the chat we wondered about the agencies that had conditioned our patterns of thinking, feeling and doing and that had therefore made us what we have and will become. We all agreed that nature, nurture and serendipity shaped both the unconscious and conscious modules of our mindbrains.
“Give me the child till he is five and I will give you the man.” Early childhood experiences can have a strong and lasting effect – especially those rooted in family, friends, the community and the media. Recent neurological research, however, notes that neuroplasticity is much greater than was once thought. This means that changes in the mindbrain, even radical ones, are always possible, “It is never too late to change your mindbrain.”
“From cradle to grave.” “From womb to tomb.” Being educators we were aware of various models of the human development stages. Nature, nurture and serendipity play their parts in driving things in this direction rather than that. “The only constant thing is change.
The ‘nature’ factors go back to our human, primate, mammalian, and reptilian ancestors and even to biochemical interactions in the primeval soup and more basic chemical reactions involved in the evolution of the solar system, galaxy and universe with its stars and planets.
And it resulted in the weekend meeting of a small group of childhood friends at least one of whom, with a measure of cynical scepticism, noticed that we are stardust.
Cynicism is a state of mind characterized by a general distrust of other people’s apparent motives or ambitions. It includes a lack of faith in what the human race or individuals cling to. This includes desires, hopes, opinions, or personal tastes that are felt to be unrealistic or inappropriate and therefore deserving of ridicule or rebuke.
Scepticism is a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing. It requires all information to be well supported by evidence. Scientific scepticism is the practice of questioning whether claims are supported by empirical research and have reproducibility. It is part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge".
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