Many of us have heard about the story of blind men touching an elephant.  The one who touched an elephant leg believed an elephant was cylinder-shaped.  The one who touched its trunk believed it looked like a giant snake.

   Our brain is very evolved.  It is now designed to simplify our jobs.  For example, when you first learn how to drive, it takes every bit of your concentration just to drive in a straight line.  As you gain experience, driving becomes a subconscious activity, barely requiring any effort from our conscious brain.  Our brain also drives us to oversimplify matters, categorizing them into north vs south, good vs bad, right vs wrong, east vs west, left vs right, success vs failure, beauty vs ugliness, heaven vs hell.  Many Hong Kong people's perspective of wealthy mainlanders is slightly negative.  Some Americans tend to treat every Middle-Eastern person as a potential terrorist.  This kind of stereotype is the work of our brain, in its effort to become efficient.

   It is also this unconsciousness that drives us to behave badly.  Do you agree that the last time you swore at someone, you actually were not very conscious about it?  It was like you were not in control.  Actually you were in control.  It's just that your decision-making is in the subconscious part of the brain.

  Very few people in this world is without false concepts, ideas and views. If a very powerful man (or woman) decides to act, in his or her wish to correct things, and may consider the sacrifice of lives to be well-warranted, it becomes very treacherous. Two examples I think of are Hitler and George W. Bush.

   There was once a very wise man who told this story: Once upon a time there was a widowed father who lived with his 7 year old son in a village.  After he left the village for a trip, bandits came to loot the entire village.  When he returned, he was devastated by discovering a charred body of a child not far from the door of his house.  He took the body as his son without a doubt.  He cremated the body and brought the ash with him wherever he went.  In fact, his son was kidnapped by the bandits and the boy successfully escaped his captors three months later.  He ran back home and arrived in the middle of a night.  His father was wakened by the loud bang and knocks, but he would not believe the boy's words.  He thought it was a prank played by a naughty child in the village, and sent his own son away.  His son thought his father had abandoned him, and so never returned. 

   The wise man's message was: A cup filled with dirty water cannot be filled with clean water, not until you throw the dirty water away first.  Do not take anything as the absolute truth, even if someone with great authority says so.