It turns out that "just because"
was an answer I would use to explain a lot of thing I knew, but didn't know why
I knew them, or didn't understand how I came to be so certain about them. For example if asked "why do you like
your brother?" a perfectly complete and proper answer would be "just because." My mother used a similar technique when I
asked her why I could or couldn't do a thing and would answer "just because"
or the more frightening version "because I said so!"
Things haven't changed that
much.
I still find myself in situations
where I just know something to be so, or I have a feeling that convinces me
about something, or I have a sense that I ought to do this or that and I don't
rightly know why it is I know so definitely why I should follow that sense. Today if I am challenged with "why?"
I don't answer like I did as a child with "just because" although I
want to. Now I have to have a careful
and proper explanation for my choices and decisions. I have to come up with a well thought out
reason for whatever it is. So I've
learned to refer to the authority of what is going on around me more and more,
and less to what I sense. The up side of
doing so is that people around me feel more confident with an externally
verified reason for doing something, but the down side is that my sensitivity
to my felt experience of knowing began to decrease as I started to down play
its role in my thinking.
Now and then I would get that
uneasy feeling about a decision that prompted me to do, say or think something
that seemed out of step with conventional wisdom and I would carefully suppress
it and go with the popular choice. I've
talked to dozens of people who have noticed the same tendency and have bottled-up
their messy intuitive nudges for fear of a wrinkled up nose response of
"why would you do that?"
Human beings, it seems, have an
external and an internal sense perception.
Externally we navigate thanks to the brilliance of our sense perceptions
and how the world appears to us. Internally
our navigation system depends on something abstract and elusive, a felt
sensation some call intuition. The
emphasis appears to be on external information for plotting a course through
this life and guidance through our intuitive nature, whatever it is understood
to be, is rarely taught or explored as a viable way of evaluating one path over
the other.
But who hasn’t had an idea in the
middle of the night to make a specific and major course correction whether that
is in a relationship or in a career or something else? It might be one of those absolutely illogical
choices that everyone would say "you're crazy" to with substantial
logical reasons to back up their outrage.
And, when you take a moment to think about it, their reasonable counters
to your idea seem solid and right and spell out exactly why you should not make
the change you are flirting with. And
yet, you can't shake the feeling of rightness about making the change and you
don't know the answer to the question 'why?' other than to say sheepishly,
'just because.'
We feel things and we know things intuitively.
It's a difficult thing to measure
and test something that cannot be seen, recorded and counted
Hans Selye, the Austrian-Canadian
endocrinologist who is considered by some to be the first scientist to
demonstrate the existence of biological stress said that "the fairest
thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which
stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not, and can no longer
wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. We all had this priceless
talent when we were young. But as time goes by, many of us lose it. The true
scientist never loses the faculty of amazement. It is the essence of his being."
(Today in Science History, todayinsci.com)
We have to develop resistance and even defiance.
There is so much that we don’t
understand, like for example, our intuition, our ability to know without the
process of reasoning. It is such a rich
source of great ideas for our lives that get us excited and charged up to go
ahead and do great things that no amount of careful planning and analysis can achieve. And to develop sensitivity to that intuitive
faculty takes resilience because there is a strong cultural voice of suspicion
about its accuracy and rightly so -- because it is difficult to sort through
and know the difference between intuition, fantasy, cultural messages and
everything else floating around inside.
Nevertheless, even with all known issues and shortcomings, whatever the
reason for disconnecting from our intuition, my opinion is that we have to stop
depriving ourselves of one of the greatest and most beautiful navigation
assistance systems that is part of being a human being.
I think we have to develop a resistance to
the trend to minimize or ridicule our intuition, even defiance and to take on
an adventurer's attitude for trying and testing what we are prompted to do from
within. Personally I don't think
intuition will ever prompt you or anyone else to do something dangerous to self
or others, and if you are prompted from within to do something inadvisable,
that isn't intuition and ought not to be followed. That's not to say intuition will not nudge
you out onto the skinny branch, or whisper in your ear about the precise action
you are nervous to take, it probably will.
But it doesn't, in my opinion, recommend reckless, dangerous, and
irresponsible actions.
Sometimes it produces a grand
idea about your life, or even a weird idea about your current line of action
and you may have a healthy dose of second guessing yourself to go through. You may also find tremendous resistance from
those around you and a sense that no one understands you. There is a story of the famous chemist and inventor
of Vaseline, Sir Robert Augustus Chesebrough could not get anyone to take his
new product seriously. He had to
literally burn himself and apply the salve on his own wounds in front of audiences
to demonstrate what Vaseline was capable of.
Sometimes you have to be your own authority and move on your good ideas
even if no one readily accepts them.
Sometimes the experts are the ones who will be the voice of negation. Thomas Edison, who gave the world so much
through his genius is said to have commented that the talking picture would
never supplant the regular silent motion pictures of his time, and that the
phonograph had no commercial value and that the radio craze will soon die out.
Part of the problem is that when
the respected experts and trusted friends tell us something, being the believing
creatures that we are, we think about what they say seriously and sometimes
take their opinion for truth, not listening equally to the countless prompts
from inside to the contrary.
Ordinary Awareness is a Mysterious Affair.
The world out there is not black
and white and not set in concrete, even though reality seems to be something
fixed and solid. It is not. In a very real sense, what we regard as
ordinary consciousness is a great and mysterious affair; some would say even an
illusion.
But that is the world out there;
there IS something that is permanent, unchanging, constant, regular, and
dependable. I call it reality, and to me
this reality remains a vastly
unexplored territory in which so much is possible that is not obvious. We have
to look inside to find it. We can practice
cultivating it, or listening to it and drawing up on it to bring light into the
world. We are already uncannily aware of
what is going on around us, but may have fallen into a dream in which we think
only what appears before us concretely is real.
We already have a vast capacity to absorb and understand by means of
both logical and sensed knowing, but may have forgotten or abandoned the powerful
awareness that come from the subtle blend of inner and outer knowing.
I am willing to risk admitting
that I do not absolutely understand the process of calling upon this inner
something, yet that does not seem to matter in the slightest, because I
intuitively sense the unseen, I intuitively feel the unknown, I am more than somewhat
inclined to believe that there is a presence that many call God, that I call Reality,
and I trust that in It is our hope and salvation.
A special thank you to my facebook readers who have left great comments about Intuitin and Why It Is Important on my Facebook page ~ did you know you can subscribe to this blog by entering your email address above on the right. Thanks again, Edward
ReplyDeleteWell said. I have never heard intuition discussed in this way. Thank you for sharing your insights.
ReplyDeleteThanks Johnnyboy for taking the time to comment on this post about Intuition. I appreciate it very much. I hope you'll stop by this site again. Edward
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