Bokelskere.no

Media images are rife with rigid concepts about our humanity. The fiftyish woman who can't relinquish her image as forever thirty will make herself miserable to maintain her alliance with simplism, and in the process circumvent the possibility of finding grace in the aging process. While this may be easily dismissed as being her problem, it is important to recognize that this woman is not alone.

The biggest lie promoted by various of our social institutions – and this in some ways plays into our human nature and our sin of laziness – is that we're here to be happy all the time. We're bombarded by business, the media, and the church with the lie that we're here to be happy, fulfilled and comfortable.

Indeed, as the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote: "A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies."

How often, in fact, do we stop to think about what we believe? One of the major dilemmas we face both as individuals and as a society is simplistic thinking – or the failure to think at all. It isn't a problem, it is the problem.

One characteristic that distinguishes human beings from other creatures is the relatively large size of our brain, compared to our overall body weight. (The exceptions are whales and dolphins. They have larger brains in proportion to their bodies than people do, which is one of the reason many animal rights activist are vehement in their mission to protect these species, they believe whales and dolphins may, in fact, be smarter than we are in some ways.)

Hamlet's often quoted "To be or not to be?" is one of life's ultimate existensial questions. Another question gets to the heart of how we interpret that existence. I would paraphrase Shakespeare to ask; "To think or not to think?" That is the ultimate question in combating simplism. And at this point in human evolution, it may be the very equivalent of "To be or not to be?"

Simplistic thinking has become so pandemic in society that it is considered normal and conventional wisdom among some segments of the population.