In the spirit of emergent figurative thinking and paying attention to what the last post brought up it became clear that there is another topic which it is important to touch on before going into learning and understanding. While attention is crucial for becoming aware of habits and honing our perception, the attitude which underpins our inquiry is equally important for where we arrive with our questions.

This is important because – no matter how good we are at being present and paying attention – if we press too hard for answers we can easily end up misconstruing what is going on. This works both inwardly and outwardly: if we impose an answer we might miss what comes up next or, more seriously, misunderstand where other people speak from. Understanding requires that we are willing to continually revise our assumptions about whatever we’re inquiring about.

Being open to being wrong means that a point of view should be acknowledged for what it is: an opinion. There can be better opinions but there can be no objective/absolute/right opinions. Opinions are thoughts and thoughts are representations of reality – which is ever-changing. The best our thoughts and opinions can do is to acknowledge that they are momentary reflections of this unending and unknowable flow, and try to stay open to what is going on within that flow. This ‘self-perception’ of thought is what Bohm calls proprioception and without it thoughts quickly become incoherent (that is a topic for a future refiguration, see Sean Reagan’s post Bohm Dialogue: Thought and Proprioception for a good description this dynamic).

What does it take to be aware that our thoughts are not ‘real’ or that ‘the map is not the territory’? If it is to mean more than just a statement about an intention to become something that we are not presently, it surely means practice. And that means both entering and falling out of creative flow, which is likely to be both exciting and dispiriting. That is why attitude matters. As ‘posture’ or an approach to learning, attitude is an important factor for whether we are going to get hurt by our failures or instead take them as clues for how not to do things.

So what kind of attitude can we take to our inquiry?

In his work on counselling as a wisdom-based practice Vance Peavy describes the importance of having a reality-seeking attitude. He writes:

“reality seekers are open-minded, receptive, and flexible. They are careful not to settle into habitual ways of thinking, perceiving and self-expression. They know that all explanations, theories, and models are at best crude and approximate maps of reality. They shun “one right way” and either/or modes of thinking ... They do not shut out new ideas and cling to old conceptions that no longer fit emerging contexts. Reality seekers rely heavily on description and are cautious about theory or final explanations”.

A reality-seeking attitude is one which values the possibilities inherent to the fact that one’s ideas about the world are always limited: it seeks out other ways of seeing a problematic in order to learn more about it. This attitude values the ability to alter one’s experience of the world, not as an exercise in the relativity of facts or morals but as a ‘subtle power’ which empowers a person to understand her own position and capacities, as Anthony McCann writes.

Within the reality-seeking mindset the opinions or viewpoints of other people are welcomed as alternate ways of looking at reality instead of being categorised as ‘right or wrong’ statements about the world which are to be attacked or defended depending on whether we agree. This doesn’t mean that there should not be disagreement: when we disagree it is necessary to talk about why we disagree. But a disagreement can take the form of dialogue rather than argument when we acknowledge that opinions are divergent representations of reality. And if another person doesn’t share a reality-seeking attitude and insists that her opinion is right, well then we have probably found that there is little basis for further conversation. We can move on.

An attitude which insists on patiently asking the right questions instead of striving for answers will get us much further in our inquiry because we are less likely to settle for the wrong solutions. It will help us cultivate a healthy form of detachment from the inquiry itself – rather than trying to grasp on to what is can’t be grasped we can see our maps of reality for what they are. And this will also help us to engage with other people without falling into the trap of defending our opinions. As long as we can avoid an attitude of superiority and engage genuinely in an interaction, it won’t hurt to fail. Failure is not defeat but simply a sign on the road that our assumptions about where we were going were wrong.

This leads to a final point about attitude for now. The kind of inquiry I am talking about starts from a recognition that the airwaves in which personal and public conversations take place are poisoned by a ‘soft pollution’ which can warp even the most exquisitely crafted message. Call it the disciplining power of normality, the discursive elimination of uncertainty, information overload or commercialisation of the personal sphere – it is eating away at our capacity to communicate freely. For this reason it is necessary that a reality-seeking attitude is infused with a healthy dose of sincerity (as long as we don’t take ourselves to seriously) and honesty (as long as we are not bent on revelation). This is an antidote for toxic environments where it can be hard to just be in the pressure to be something.

If we can cultivate this kind of attitude which allows us to be comfortable with not having answers, we can begin.