The previous post on acceptability talked about some reasons why things become unacceptable over time and raised a point regarding the width of the “boundary of acceptability”. In this follow up I want to discuss a bit more the grey areas surrounding acceptability – from a number of viewpoints including cultural and personal.
Philosophical
Selective Memory?
In History Is What We Make It I wrote about the vagaries of our memories – how we remember some things, forget others and make up yet more!! Yesterday I was given a rather clear example of just how ‘strange’ our memory can be when it comes to selecting a particular event to forget!!
On Changing What Is Considered Acceptable
It is interesting to see how our understanding of what is “acceptable” changes through time. Things change in both directions – some things that are “acceptable” become “unacceptable” whilst other things go from “unacceptable” to “acceptable”.
A Paradox of Ignorance
We all – inevitably – view the world through a series of prejudices and biases. This is not a criticism, merely a fact. Just yesterday I clipped an article to OneNote which listed “58 Cognitive Biases That Screw Up Everything We Do“!! In addition to these inbuilt mistake inducing biases we also have our own personal list of “things we know” that colour every move we make.
Who Ties The String?
One of the recurring themes of my posts here (the most recent is Someone Is Pulling The Strings Again) is my thoughts on the applicability of the “Red Thread of Fate” – East Asian folklore that is specifically about the way in which we are “bound” to our soulmate, but which I see as a useful metaphor for the way in which we are “connected” to each other in a multitude of ways (perhaps there out to be more colours to denote the ‘nature’ of the connection! We could then have a rainbow world – in whatever dimension that thread resides!!!)
Who Knows?
It is clear that not everything you read online is going to be correct – indeed often it is wise to consider the possibility that nothing you read online is correct. 😀 (and yes – I do appreciate the irony of writing that in a blog post) However, sometimes you come across something that- whilst seeming to be sensible – triggers thoughts about things that are (perhaps) wrong in the real world rather than in the online world.
Serenity
Just at this moment life seems to be very full of “situations” and it is clear that each situation can only be influenced to a limited extent. In some cases that may well mean that no influence can be brought to bear and I don’t think there is any where full control can be applied. For these situations it is crucial that efforts are focussed on what can be influenced – and not wasted on the rest.
Thoughts On A Meme
I have to admit that I ‘collect’ what the online world has taken to calling “memes”. Now I have been collecting them since before they were called that (I think) – certainly before it was part of popular usage – when they were ‘merely’ aphorisms. (and yes – I do realise that in the accepted sense “memes” are more than ‘just’ “aphorisms”)
A Pointless Habit
Why do you continue to do something when you are convinced that it is no longer worthwhile?
Every now and again – perhaps more often than we might care to admit – we develop – well lets call them habits – that persist long after the justification for them has lapsed or, even worse, the habit has become damaging in one way or another. I’m not talking here about anything that is necessarily pernicious or threatening or even “wrong” – simply no longer worthwhile.
Words Of The Day
It struck me as quite strange today that there were two words that sprang into my vocabulary out of, seemingly, nowhere that turned out to be much more ‘apt’ than anything that I could have used to replace them. What was even stranger was that these words were both adjectives, both used to describe “me” and almost entirely opposite in meaning!