Deciding vs not deciding

Lets say you are a student, and the professor asks everyone to read a book and write something about it. You don’t particularly respect this professor so you are not so keen on wasting your time reading this book, but either way you go and get the book, read it and then write about it.

Now take the same book but instead of the recommendation coming from your professor it comes from yourself. For example, you find the book in a store where the back summary sounds interesting, or you watch a video on the book and think it is worth your time.

In both scenarios the content you are going to consume is the same but the premise to the consumption is different. Clearly in the second scenario you are more probable to enjoying the book more.

why?

What does it mean to decide?

Lets go back to the first scenario where you did pick up the book due to your professors recommendation.

What made you do that? Why did you do it?

Desire brings about decision, so what desire it was that made you decide to read the book. Could it be to avoid a punishment? or because you want to get the best grade?

It would be simple to say that because your professor influenced you that this desire is external, but this conclusion … meh.

One nuance here is the source of desire and whether it is something you respect. In the first scenario you did not respect your professor thus the recommendation seemed as a waste of time. But imagine the recommendation came from someone you admired, clearly the recommendation would have been much better received.

So with this section what I want to push across is that even though you did decide to read the book in the end on both scenarios, the result will not be the same.

In which ways does this affect us?

So lets see another example where you are debating with a relative about politics (classic). And you are both on opposite sides, and your relative recommends you to read a book on their side of the argument. So because you are not an animal and are open to hearing both sides of arguments you go and get the book and read it.

Do you think the effect this content will have on you will be the same as your relative?

Clearly no. From the moment you opened the book you are already waiting to attack any arguments and call it brainwashing. So in the end we are indeed animals. To a certain extent this “attitude” you have against the book will never be able to disappear. We will never be able to be truly open minded in my opinion, thus we can only be aware of this phenomena when we consume content (or do anything).

How to use this to our advantage?

So now we know that our “attitude” before we consume content (or even do anything really) affects our experience. It begs the question could we try to use this to improve our life? Well of course.

Lets go back to the professor you don’t really respect. Even though you are not keen to pick up the book, you could research around it and find the best points of the book. By having decided to find motivation on your own you will obtain internal desire. Because you respect your own opinions your “attitude” to reading this book is now “right”. One would say this is what education is all about, finding through your own work the interest to study.

But if you look at this it does not have to be restricted to education. One can apply this to anything! Lets say you need to do your taxes. You could just do them, or you could find a way to want to do them (this might be an extreme example).

Of course there are limits to this as we cannot force ourselves to like everything, but you would be surprised at the sheer amount of things we can.

As an example when I was young I hated literature and writing. I saw writing like this: Why write a paragraph when you can have 3 bullet points and say the same thing?

As I grew older I realised how much of an art writing is, and my interest kept growing, BUT, I had a say in it. I controlled it. I wanted to like it, so I tried reading more and looking at what the people I admired said about writing. Bit by bit I “manipulated” my brain into enjoying writing.

Is it wrong? I have basically found a way to enjoy life more…

Once I realised how much power this gave me I let go. With more of an open mind I started to approach things like ceramics and Go. Two things that if you had asked me 5 years ago I would have never said I saw myself doing them.

I guess the key point here is you control more than you think.