Hypocrisy? Sure, I’ll have some.

By Cody Davis on Unsplash

“Hypocrite” — I tell myself, for the nth time, as I sit down to write on a zen patch of grass by the ocean while, simultaneously, shove down my digestive tract a sharing-size bag of chipotle chips, a can of coke zero and a ‘low-carb’ (high-junk) cookie dough protein bar.

This post is not about me, but about the remarkable amount of suffering that we, humans, choose to experience by incessantly pointing out and over-guilting over all the apparent inconsistencies and conflicting ideas about how we live our lives and how what we believe to be true.

As of January 1st, I’ve read, at least, one book a week. Paradoxically, the colossal amount of invigorating ideas that started fertilizing my brain every new week was often followed by an unexpected sense of confusion and, ultimately, sheer ignorance about what I thought I understood and vehemently believed to be true. With every new book, I have experienced the cognitive ecstasy of understanding a new idea, which was often followed by a weird sense of intellectual hypocrisy. “Hold on, do I really believe that now?” — the guilt of flirting with an idea that, fully or partially, contradicts something you had held as a truth or a core belief until that moment is real. After all, it’s the opposite of what our confirmation bias-addicted brains want to believe. On top of that internal conflict, we fear sounding incoherent and often avoid externalizing that we have, in fact, changed our minds.

This internal and societal pressure to always take one stand and have unshakable, preferably extreme views about everything — from the ideal diet to the future of AI — is not only futile from a pure knowledge evolution perspective but also lethal for anyone aspiring to rise above mediocrity of thought. Here are the main three reasons why:

1. Truths are transient. We don’t need to have a full philosophical discussion about the metaphysics of the transient features of proposition or about the Buddhist notion of impermanence to know that there are no absolute truths. In fact, in today’s era of exponential disruption, the expiration date of new ideas, trends and technologies is increasingly shorter. The world isn’t flat. Time is relative. Tuberculosis is treatable. The UK isn’t part of the EU. Your Facebook data isn’t safe. You carry more computing power in your pocket than Apollo 11 did. Let’s stop confusing the limits of our knowledge with absolute truths and with what is possible. As Epictetus suggested nearly 2000 years ago: expect to change your opinion; one cannot learn what he thinks he already knows.
2. Bad people can have good ideas. I have always founded it curious that prominent stoic philosopher (and personal hero) Seneca often quoted Epicurus, who founded a school of thought that was diametrically opposed to stoicism. “I’ll not be ashamed to quote a bad writer with a good saying” — Seneca was consistently and objectively looking for wisdom, regardless of its origins, affiliations or reputations. It’s so easy to dismiss the merit of an idea based on our preconceived judgement about certain people, philosophies, countries, (sub-)cultures and so on. “Every man I meet is my master in some way, and in that I learn from him.” — R.W. Emerson nailed the humble, open attitude that we so lack in our era of increasingly divisive, dismissive speech.
3. Success demands holding conflicting ideas. As best put by entrepreneur Tom Bilyeu, people succeed not in spite of their standing for conflicting ideas, but because of it. We crave the comfort of absolute, black-or-white truths, when the only potential truth is the that the world is one big spectrum of grey. We’ve already discussed the futility of attaching to pseudo-truths in a rapidly evolving world, but let’s think about what (I think) Tom really means by the very necessity of being comfortable with holding opposing thoughts as individuals aiming to succeed. As humans, we so long for binary rules and certainty that we find ourselves agonizing between the thoughts of “Be grateful for your have” vs. “Always strive for more”; “Be kind to yourself” vs. “You need to suffer in order to learn”; “Focus on building unique expertise” vs. “Know a lot about everything”;“Be patient” vs. “Keep pushing faster and faster”. The reality is, all of those diametrically opposing views have inherent value and learning how to leverage two opposing ideas at the same time (and see that there is no objective conflict between them) is critical to rise above averageness of thought . To paraphrase Tom, finding ‘balance’ is the most certain way to mediocrity.

Chipotle chips, coke zero, cookie dough protein bar. It is quite the irony that my inner contempt for the heresy of indulging in junk food when I intended to have gone meditate led me to digress into thoughts about our seemingly innate tendency to manufacture unnecessary, counterproductive judgment about conflicting ideas and the ‘inconsistencies’ of life. Next time someone calls you a hypocrite for changing your mind or holding competing ideas, consider taking it as compliment.