Making Sense

Prejudice isn’t something you can just let go of, any more than you can suddenly decide to speak a foreign language. We only take in a small fraction of the information around us. The rest is incomprehensible, meaningless, noise if we are even aware of it. The reason we use categories is to gradually make sense of things. It is how we learn. Josh Waitzkin (author of “The Art of Learning”) describes this as “Numbers to leave Numbers, Form to leave Form”. In both chess and martial arts, he created a structure to add meaning, then embodied that knowledge to the point it wasn’t conscious anymore. Prejudice isn’t simply whether we like something or not. It is a way we soak in the chaos of the world till we feel we start to make sense of it. Free Will and Understanding is possible. It is just hard. It requires slowing everything right down and rewiring the way you see, hear, feel, and connect. We will always be prejudiced. The best we can do is build a feedback loop to unlearn and relearn.