I have friends who are outspoken activists concerned about anything and everything from climate change to social justice,
Privacy protection,
Gun control,
Animal rights,
Gender equality,
Fighting for one issue or against another.
While I do admire their passion,
They have all acknowledged that their motivation is fueled by the belief that if others only knew what they know,
Then more people would change their ways.
There are two major flaws with that line of thinking.
The first problem is that those activists are convinced that they are right,
And the second issue is that they presume people always act rationally.
To unpack the first problem with anyone thinking they are right about anything,
Let's revisit the classic tale about a group of adults who have all been blind since birth,
Encountering an elephant for the first time in their lives.
They each touch a different part of the elephant,
So the one who touched the tusk described the elephant as smooth and sharp,
But the one who grabbed the elephant's trunk disagreed and said,
No,
This animal resembles a snake.
Hearing this,
The one touching the elephant's tail argued,
You are both wrong,
The animal is more like a frayed rope.
The one who touched the elephant's leg said it felt like a tree trunk,
While the one touching the elephant's belly was perplexed by all of these descriptions because the animal just felt like a large wall.
In some renditions of this story,
They endlessly fight about which one of them is right,
While other traditions introduce someone with sight,
Informing them that they are all partially correct.
The moral of the parable is that we tend to claim absolute truths based on our limited subjective experiences,
While completely ignoring other people's limited and subjective experiences.
The elephant is said to be a metaphor for God,
For morality,
Or for ethics,
And every blind person represents a different religion,
Political opinion,
Or school of thought,
Each one claiming to fully understand what they have only partially experienced.
The idealist in me prefers the version of the elephant story where the blind peacefully collaborate with one another to better understand the entirety and complexity of the elephant.
But that brings me to the second problem with outward activism,
The assumption that with more information,
People would just abandon their reasoning and change their behavior accordingly.
Just last week,
I sat across from someone who knew exactly how much it would hurt to do something and how damaging it would be,
Yet they have every intention to continue doing it until the day they die.
They are not misinformed or uneducated,
They actually have their reasoning.
It doesn't matter how unreasonable they sound to me,
Because what do I know?
I'm just touching the elephant's leg while they hold the tusk.
Other people's rationale may be different from yours,
But that doesn't mean it's wrong or inferior.
Logic and principles can vary greatly and even be contradictory.
Keep in mind that from a Buddhist perspective,
The entire idea of an individual self,
Of anyone being separate from others,
Is an illusion as absurd as thinking your finger isn't part of your hand.
Better yet,
Since I'm a visual person,
I want you to imagine that you and I are roots in the ground beneath a very large tree.
We are perhaps on opposite sides of the tree and in different depths.
Neither one of us can claim to be self-sufficient,
Independent,
Unchanging,
Or permanent because no root exists independently of the elements on which it depends.
Not only sunlight,
Water,
And minerals in the soil,
But interdependence on other roots sharing rainwater and nutrients by only taking as much as they need so the rest can reach the roots deeper in the ground.
Any root thinking it is independent is not only delusional,
But selfish.
It's why Thich Nhat Hanh said,
We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.
Whenever someone firmly believes there is one universal truth,
It is always conveniently enough their own.
Every time you try to prove that you are right or superior,
You fail to account for relativism,
The doctrine that knowledge,
Truth,
And morality are not absolute.
They are subject to time,
Place,
And circumstance.
No matter how passionate you are about your beliefs,
Trying to change other people by forcefully giving them unsolicited information assumes three things,
That you can magically see the entire elephant,
That you are somehow an expert on what other people need,
And that it's your job to fix what you think is their narrow thinking.
We fail to consider other people's perspectives and preferences and we overlook the very good chance that to them,
You are the narrow-minded one.
It's not exactly the blind leading the blind,
It's more like the short-sighted leading the short-sighted.
It is dismissive and presumptuous,
Often leading to resistance and a lack of engagement.
I don't believe anyone does anything wrong considering their model of the world or they wouldn't do it.
More accurately,
We all justify doing what we may acknowledge is wrong on one hand,
But totally justifiable on the other.
The reasons for our justifications vary from mild to severe cognitive dissonance,
Mental illness,
Or greed,
Which some actually consider a form of mental illness.
By taking that step back,
We stop claiming to fully understand something we have only partially experienced.
The world is not black and white,
The elephant can't be described with one adjective,
And our vision is always short-sighted.
I think that's why the fourth Buddhist precept regarding mindful speech guides us to live compassionately by avoiding all forms of communication that might be malicious,
Cause discord,
Or spread information that we do not know to be true.
We are encouraged to set our egos aside and approach all situations with sensitivity and respect for other people's autonomy.
The ego is a person's false sense of self-importance,
Hence why I always say,
Your ego is not your amigo.
So when it comes to topics you are extremely passionate about,
It's beautiful when new information opens your eyes,
Heart,
And mind,
And you change your behavior accordingly.
But when you try to forcefully change other people's mind because you have recently experienced the elephant's tusk and ear,
But still not the rest of the elephant,
You have no idea how much more there is to explore.
So you can lighten up or don't lighten up.
The wheels of the bus go round and round either way.
If you want peace,
Start by being peaceful.
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Please show your support,
And remember we are all in this together like roots beneath a very large tree we know so little about.
Namaste.
