On lazy afternoons, when I get bored of worrying about the future or forgetting to plan for it, I like to wander down lists of published scientific studies, just waiting until I'm surprised. I recommend it!
Of course a lot of them are just common sense. Do we really need science to confirm for us that confidence is attractive or peer pressure is effective? And that chocolate makes people happy? Well duh, that's why we eat it.
It's the surprise that's important. I want the weird ones that make me immediately skeptical or confused. I want the ones that come barreling in out of nowhere, making my interpretive schemata do a somersaulting belly flop in my prefrontal cortex.
Did you know ADHD in children has been linked to obesity later on? Also, crazy and creative people have eerily similar brains, and whiskey can be good for you! And by the way, every rise and fall of violent crime in the last half-century has been closely and strongly linked to changing rates of childhood lead exposure.
You see, as I'm learning, I don't want my new facts to just fit happily in with my view of the world like a toy poodle poking his head out of a pillowcase. I want to see them rip into my self-contained ideological paradigm like a dachshund trying to dig candy out of a Christmas stocking.
As humans, we're really good at interpreting everything in a way that conveniently leaves all our basic assumptions and prejudices intact.
Our worldviews come equipped with dense turtle shells for shielding themselves, for weathering the storm of new ideas. We're replete with defense mechanisms like a wealthy family in the suburbs, using fiberglass and cotton to insulate ourselves against different or contrary ways of thinking.
So exposing yourself to different ways of thinking is just a way of stretching and stress-testing your too-comfortable worldview. You can look up studies online or just find someone to debate with -- preferably someone you angrily disagree with.
(If your first instinct after they voice their opinion is to punch them, then it's going to be a productive discussion, assuming you don't punch them.)
It's like I'm taking my confirmation bias out for a walk. It nods a lot, shakes its head and tuts-tuts disparagingly, pees on a mailbox once or twice and then yips and drags me forward if it catches a whiff of anything about mental health or international terrorism.
Every now and then, however, a zebra nosedives out of the woods and gives my perspectival mutt the scare of its life.
Or what looked originally like a sedentary neighbor charges up and bites its tail off, and I'm left trying to patch up a bloody stump on my conceptual understanding of human society.
But it heals fast, and I'm better for it. And it's good for the heart! Not unlike whiskey, apparently.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/08/col-0822
