The Trap of Double Mindedness

Friday, September 22nd, 2023

This is a hard concept to describe, but it came to mind this morning, so I want to capture as much of it as best as I can right now.

I was recalling a conversation with my wife where it felt like a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario, and it gave me insight into the challenge, not just with her, but often in general with people.

The situation involved going to the gym in the morning. It's walking distance and so often I walk there. She drives there and we thought maybe we should just drive together and I would walk back.

But on this morning, I found something which I found to at the time upset me on the mantle. She received a plaque of recognition that was tongue and cheek, but it used language and evoked imagery which put me in a negative mood. And I had told her this, not in a "You must remove it" but in a, "Yeah, that's not a comfortable thing, and by the way I also found this blah blah blah" -- the blah blah blah I felt was related, but I see now she just looked at that, but I assumed she received it.

Anyway, the double mindedness is this: I'm sure she'll be upset to turned the plaque away. My thought was, since I prepare for the day since my bags are near the mantle, I'm going to turn it away.

But if she derived value from seeing this from a former employer, she can turn it back.

The problem is, I'd have been fine having the direct conversation, "This plaque isn't great for me, help me understand what it does for you? Does the value it gives you offset the negative impact on me, and vice-versa is true -- is the positive impact so great for you I should just eat the negative impact" and perhaps more importantly, which trumps in figuring things, something is a vitamin and makes the day better, or a negative, it's going to make it worse?

But the double-mindedness is to claim, "If it's good for me, I should put it up" -- that's the reason for the plaque.

But it doesn't apply for "It's it bad and negative for me, I should turn it away."

Those are comparable, if not equivalent, sides of the same coin at best.

I would argue that negative, taking a loss, is so much worse and harder in any system than not getting a boost. I need to spend more time thinking this, because someone could argue thermodynamically they are the same. But I'd say it's more akin to money.

Buffet says don't lose money. I think our primary initial focus is not to lose energy and positivity.

If you choose not to take a particular path and in doing so you don't gain positivity, I feel you find the W somewhere else. This is size and investment dependent, of course.

But to me, the existence of a plaque is a minor boost and ideally a boost that can be replicated in n-number of ways. A negative one, someone needs to build resilience -- and even if the resilience cancelled it out, willpower is finite. Spending it on defeating negative behavior that doesn't need to be there versus using it to self-generate more seems to be a bad policy.

Double-mindedness is thinking one version of the truth is true for one; but it's corollary can't be true and evokes a kind of intense reaction.

I think a test for double-mindedness lies in the safety and ability to have that conversation.

If brought up in a calm and reasoned way, which I feel I try, but perhaps could learn more about, the non double-minded person should be able to see an inconsistency, perhaps feel some discomfort, but as long as the person bringing up the concern was curious not judgmental, attempt to reconcile or work through it.

Double mindedness can't, it needs to exist in the two heads, like a two-headed monster that has been told it's, in fact, a monster because humans have one head.

Does this mean we can't have paradoxes and tensions that are inconsistent?

No, as we enter more complex situations, we'll find more of those.

But it's the reaction, perhaps, the flexibility and willingness to acknowledge and appropriately weigh the thoughts at a point in time so that there needs only be one head on a pair of shoulders at any time, even if there needs to be an occasional swapping.