Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Unleashing the Passionate, Thoughtful, Rational, Logical, and Honest mind....



A few days ago I stumbled on this web site about rationale thinking.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/developing-as-rational-persons-viewing-our-development-in-stages/518

I admit, about halfway through, it was hard to focus and keep reading it as I found the visual of my hand flat and open in front of my face making a brushing motion over my head...this is way over my head stuff.

But, something about what I was reading spoke music to my heart just as if I'd heard a beautiful piece of music.  I think the natural Emily was always a passionate, thoughtful, rationale, logical and honest thinker, and the natural Emily always had the ability to question how and why I was doing things and believing things?

One of my earliest memories was being taken to a preschool.  I'm not sure if it was the first day, and I'm not sure if it was actually a preschool, but I still remember how I felt when they showed us the bathroom.  There they were, several toilets in a row.  I remember how embarrassed I felt that I would be using the bathroom in front of my classmates.  I remember absolutely refusing to go because I thought it was an injustice to have me go to the bathroom in front of other preschool children, especially boys.  How strange is that?  If memory serves me right, I didn't continue at that preschool, and I vaguely remember being out in the parking lot with my mother and hearing her not happy with me.  I'm not sure if I sabotaged going there, or just downright refused.  Just not sure.

Another memory was an attempt to have me take ballet or some other form of dance.  The requirement to conform was completely against my nature.  I wanted to dance like a fairy, and likely would have done much better in a free dance class.  I still wish I knew how to dance today, and I'm not sure how long I lasted in that class as I remember vaguely sabotaging that experience also.

Being a free thinker at such a young age with a religion that requires so much conformity I think caused a great deal of intellectual distress on me.  I'm not sure how to reconcile this, other than the fact that it was so hard to be taught rationale and logical thinking, and then be taught in church that these truths were correct, except for in the case of religion.  Ghosts don't exist except for the Holy Ghost.  Magic isn't real except for when men use the Priesthood to call upon God to do something.  Evolution, well, my best rationale way to get around this was that the earth was as old as science believed it to be, perhaps older, and that 6000 years was not in the terms of 6000 of our years, but of another time periods' years.  The mental gymnastics goes on and on.  For all the time I spent with the mental gymnastics, I could have been taught to be a purely rationale and logical and honest, and scientific thinker.  I may have been a doctor today.  I may have been a scientist.  Alas, I can't turn the clock back, and I can't blame this on anyone, but what I can do is change the future for my own children.

This is why I've resigned from taking my children to church.  At least this is a primary reason why I don't take them.  Just having them attend for the social connection wasn't going to compensate for the wasted time their little brains would have to spend learning sound principles and the latest story of science and technology, only to have the exceptions taught in religion.  I do, however, need to help my children find a social outlet that will help them grow and develop.  My two youngest have a shot at this.  My two oldest, well, thankfully they are resilient as I've tried to become. They will have to cope with much of what I have to cope with, but also have much more time to make changes in their 20's and 30's.

What about my parents, and my parents' parents?  Well, the good thing is that each generation can celebrate bringing a little bit more good to their children, and their children's children.  Each generation will celebrate women as equal to men in every right, but as just as unique as the spectrum of manhood has been made known in being feminine and masculine.  I celebrate that I truly believe my mother and father likely parented me better than their parents' parented them.  There is hope today, and there is hope tomorrow for the next generation of passionate, thoughtful, rationale, logical, and honest minds and hearts.

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