Have We Shut Our Senses?

There are two sides to a coin, that’s how we usually see the world. We often see just one side of a thing and chuck the thought that there might have been another justification for something to appear that way. For example, a thief gets caught and gets beaten up, and the endless backlash he faces; but we forget to ask why is he stealing. Is it due to necessity? Force of habit? A more lucrative pay?

Photo Credit to @zayedsakib

It just so happens that I know someone who will not delay delivering his opinions, regardless of what someone else thinks. The urge is so strong that to stand firm to his point that he would even go as far to bring in his relatives or friends to side with him only to prove you wrong. For me, if I am in the wrong, I wouldn’t justify my actions, but yesterday, I had to tell him that “I keep my judgments to myself almost all the time. Unless I know the person very well or have a substantial amount of knowledge on something, I do not impose my opinion on others.” He didn’t take it too kindly and tried to pick fights in another way. I looked at him and realized that this man had castigated me, and then when I looked at other members of my family wondered, was it a good thing that they appreciated what I said to him? I’m not apologetic about what I did, and frankly, I’m glad I did, but my receptive nature starts to wonder. The custom of criticizing and getting berated back is a constant cycle; we never consider twice about other people’s feelings when we criticize them, but our skin can barely tolerate when we get negative opinions; we ignore how it’s like to be at the other end of the barrel.

I now realize that the bigger question is why we constrict ourselves to see only the heads, not the tails of a coin, and be reluctant to flip it. I remember this woman who died in 2019 getting beaten by a mob who assumed she was a kidnapper, only to find out later that she was looking for admission related info. That’s one way to skip to conclusions fast. We can be cruel, but that is a debacle I wouldn’t bring in now, or the situation I faced is anywhere close to how massive the latter case was. But I will say this, can’t we take a few minutes to find out if there is another plausible explanation for a particular issue?

Is it because of our egocentrism we can’t comprehend another possibility that can be different from our views? Or is it our narcissistic nature that completely chucks that idea from the table?