Failure of Imagination
“None are as blind as the decent. They are blinded by their own decency.” — (paraphrased from) spiritual teacher David Hawkins
I still remember how much my worldview warped after reading Martha Stout’s book The Sociopath Next Door. Until then, I had never conceived that a person could hurt another human being with zero guilt or remorse. After all, doesn’t everyone have that portion of their brain? It turns out that up to 4% of the population does not! They can lie, cheat, and steal without a second thought. Even armed with this knowledge, I still have trouble believing someone is actively lying to my face, even when I’ve caught them red-handed.
One of the most extreme examples of this happens in the arenas of alcoholism or drug addiction. A sober person would never dream of someone robbing their own mother at gunpoint for $100 (this isn’t a fictitious example; I’ve seen it happen to a friend). Unfortunately, an addict’s head and heart can get hijacked by this dependency, and no action is too egregious to get their fix.
This failure of their imagination results in blind spots that an addict or a sociopath can exploit.
This is why decent, moral people can become easy targets.
This is why culture clashes exist (norms from one society are non-existent in another).
What About The Bright Side of Life?
Failure of imagination also limits people on the positive side of life.
A high school student from small-town USA may soon discover an overwhelming number of career options when they get to college.
A doctor with rigorous training in traditional Western medicine may have their world turned upside down when they discovers Eastern or energy medicine.
Even today, as the AI apocalypse is staring us down, people think their kindergarten kids will have the same college experience they had in the 1990s and 2000s. Newsflash, the education and job landscape in 2035 will be unrecognizable to us in 2025.
I’m not going to attempt to predict what it will look like except that it will be completely different than today and unexpected in a myriad of ways. Therefore, the worst plan is to assume it’ll be “the same as it ever was.” That’s another failure of imagination.
If I could leave you with one thing, it’s to challenge yourself to challenge what you deem to be impossible or unchangeable. Because we’re about to go through a lot of it, and the ones who fail to imagine are going to get caught flat-footed.