Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The Scientific Method and Magical Thinking

I'm not sure if all of you will get here what I'm trying to say. But let me start by saying, "Would you rather live in a Disney movie or would you rather spend your days watching people be tortured to death?

If seriously given the choice I think most of us might prefer to live in a Disney movie. Because the other choice only causes death and insanity.

So, I guess the point I'm making is that if you combine the Scientific method with positive thinking your life might move in the direction of living in a Disney movie rather than living in a torture chamber. It's all a matter of choice. Which world will you create for yourself to live in or die in?

My wife was talking on the phone to me this morning and was saying to me, "I always see you in a positive light because I love you so much." I have always loved this quality in my wife because it reminds me a lot of my mother. Even though my present wife is much more educated and intellectually developed in her approach to life and had traveled all over the world as a single businesswoman before I met her, I always have been amazed at how positive she tends to view me. No matter what happens she always seemed to bring out the best in me and not get bogged down in stuff that isn't useful. She said today, "I never lost my magical thinking as I grew up." Then I said, "Even though I combined it with the scientific method in everything I do I haven't lost it either." It was that moment I realized why our relationship worked. We are both half scottish and half other things but somehow the mystical quality from both our genetics seems to have come through for both of us and to make our lives work together.

There are many people who put down "magical thinking" without realizing that it is another way to survive really difficult events in one's life. Without magical thinking I can't imagine my mother having survived the great depression and her father abandoning her family when she was 18. My mother had to go to work to support her mother and herself at 18 when she graduated High School. Her mother had never worked outside the house her whole life and hadn't gone to school past the 3rd grade. So my mother went to work and supported her mother from the time she was 18 until she married my father when she was 27. Then my father supported both my mother and her mother. Don't knock Magical thinking because one day it may be all you have to survive your life with.

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