try and try,one day you can fly
WE need more acceptance of error, of being wrong. This might sound an odd proposition. Most of us strive to avoid mistakes, at work and home. We bring up our children to answer exam questions correctly rather than incorrectly. And yet, despite our desire to be right, error is necessary. It is part of what makes us human.
We resist this. After all, the pleasure we take in being right is one of the most fundamental we have. The opportunity to say, or at least think, ''I told you so'', exists in just about everyone. And apart from being right about specific events - an outcome in foreign policy, say, or the winner of the first race at Randwick - we have an even more fundamental feeling that we are right about pretty well everything. This point is well made in an unusual book called Being Wrong by American journalist Kathryn Schulz. It's one of those books that states plainly things you have often felt but never put into words.
Evolutionary psychology suggests why being right is so important to us. During evolution, those who were right, about practical matters such as where to find game and when a big storm was coming, survived, while those who were wrong did not. We evolved as individuals who appreciated being right, in small matters as well as big ones. What we tend to overlook is that, despite this yearning for truth, the road to it is a maze through many errors, and to reach our destination it is necessary not to ignore those errors but to acknowledge and understand them. We may need to learn to love our mistakes.
''Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority,'' observes Schulz, ''the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honourable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage'' (all of which are frequently based on delusions). ''And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks
We resist this. After all, the pleasure we take in being right is one of the most fundamental we have. The opportunity to say, or at least think, ''I told you so'', exists in just about everyone. And apart from being right about specific events - an outcome in foreign policy, say, or the winner of the first race at Randwick - we have an even more fundamental feeling that we are right about pretty well everything. This point is well made in an unusual book called Being Wrong by American journalist Kathryn Schulz. It's one of those books that states plainly things you have often felt but never put into words.
Evolutionary psychology suggests why being right is so important to us. During evolution, those who were right, about practical matters such as where to find game and when a big storm was coming, survived, while those who were wrong did not. We evolved as individuals who appreciated being right, in small matters as well as big ones. What we tend to overlook is that, despite this yearning for truth, the road to it is a maze through many errors, and to reach our destination it is necessary not to ignore those errors but to acknowledge and understand them. We may need to learn to love our mistakes.
''Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority,'' observes Schulz, ''the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honourable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage'' (all of which are frequently based on delusions). ''And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks