Overcoming what we already know

"Nothing has been more difficult than to be curious about an object or a person, without being obstructed by preconceived ideas." (Zeldin p. 193)

The human mind will never cease to amaze me. No matter how often one says, "I'm going to look at this with an open mind," he's going to approach something with his memories and knowledge. There's no "Delete" button for the human brain. Whenever we look at something, hear something, smell something, we automatically, subconsciously oftentimes, compare and contrast it with things we already know. There's no escaping the years of thoughts and ideas that have been fermenting in our minds. Sure, we can try to challenge what we know and thus take in new knowledge with a new observation or experience... but the human mind is a stubborn thing, and it's often difficult to overturn old mindsets.

For example, I am fascinated by history. Growing up, I had very set ideas about things like American history, the Norman invasion of England and the Dark Ages. Much of this was based on books that I had read or shows that I had seen... but a lot of my "knowledge" was based on my active imagination that went well beyond the facts that I had read. As I got older and began to read authoritative literature on the subjects, I was overwhelmed by how much I DIDN'T know... and by how wrong much of what I knew was. It took a long time for me to get my brain to accept that all those things I thought were fact were actually complete trash. Even today when I learn about something about which I already know a lot, and I discover something new or different, my mind doesn't want to change. Fortunately, after being wrong a LOT in my life, I've learned to take such wrongness in stride.