I want to preface this article with, if you have not had a chance to read The Code to the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani then you should stop even reading this article and go buy it. This blog post is my direct take homes from certain parts of the book. It’s literally LIFECHANGING.
Crazy Experiments
“A fish is the last to discover water because it has been swimming in it all its life.”
The human brain is the most complex and amazing organ in the body. The ability of the human brain to control everything in its surroundings based on its preconceived understandings is incredible.
Let me explain:
In the Himbu culture there is no word for the color blue but there is for the color green. In an interesting experiment, scientists went to the Himbu culture and showed them pictures of boxes. All of them were green and one was blue. They then asked the people to point out what was different and guess what? They couldn’t find the difference. Why? Their brain did not have a term for the color blue so they couldn’t define it.
Think for a second about the power of this experiment. Since the Himbu culture did not have a word for blue, they literally could not see it! This is a great demonstration of how powerful language and communication is in our perception of the world.
The Power of Language
According to history, in ancient times there were 6 different types of humans that walked the earth and only us (Homo Sapiens) made it. The primary reason is attributed to the development of language. They were able to communicate complex information to each other ultimately leading to their survival.
An example given by Vishen was, “Look a tiger, run!” versus “Hey man I saw a tiger by the river today. We should probably not go there.”
The ability to communicate sophistically led not only to the survival of the human race but also to the growth and development. Humans were now able to establish laws like who should be in charge and truths like tigers will eat us.
This is where it went wrong.
Absolute vs. Relative Truths
As the human population continued to evolve, we continued to define more truths. Many of them physical truths like gravity, fire is hot, and some animals can kill you.
These laws are truths and they are considered absolute truths and knowing them can be essential to our survival. However, as the human species has continued to evolve we have developed another set of truths called relative truths.
Relative truths are rarely physical, they may be difficult to describe, and they are often passed onto us without much of a choice.
For example, we are told we should get a job that pays well, we should get married, have a family, work hard to retire (even if you hate your job), and die when you’re old. But these truths aren’t absolute. They are subjective! Yet we let them control us because we do not question them!
Think for a second about a child and their growth pattern:
When a child is young growth comes very quickly. They know nothing but quickly start learning absolute truths like don’t touch that it is hot, falling down hurts, and rolling in the dirt ruins my clothes and makes mom mad.
During this time a ton of growth is occurring because they are not plagued with relative truth yet. They question everything. Think about how often a child says why, or tries to go against what their parent says. Eventually, as scolding and grounding occurs they are introduced to relative truths and the growth slows.
But what if we were never plagued by relative truths. What if we realized that most relative truths aren’t real, they are merely agreements and agreements that you can negotiate. This is when you can truly be in control. As Vishen states, “Realizing the world you’re living in exists inside your head puts you in the driver seat. You can use your own mind to deconstruct the belief systems, and rules you’ve been living with.”
Think back for a second on the power of the brain like discussed earlier. The brain is only capable of knowing what it is told and even though some of these relative truths are known by us, we can ultimately decide how we react to them and how we let them influence our actions. This is because of the power of the brain.
If you can achieve this, you can achieve a mind that is not held back by relative truths that you were forced to believe. You may decide to leave that job that is steady but you hate. You may decide not to be stressed about being 5 minutes late to a job. You may decide you don’t have to meet your great aunt Gertrude for Sunday dinner when you’d rather be watching the football game and tossing back some brews. You may just decide to take control of your life.
Take Home
Determining what truths in your life are absolute and which ones you can question can be a challenge but it can put you in control. It may be uncomfortable but it will ultimately lead to stress free living on your own terms.
An interesting point to make that I will address in another post is deciding what relative truths to keep. What about relative truths that benefit you. Remember how strong the mind can be? If you can choose which relative truths your mind can use for its personal gain, you can put yourself in the driver seat even more as a master of intellectual manipulation. I’ll leave you with this quote to chew on until my next post.
"If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them"
– Peter Diamandis.