Changing Our Mind - 020

Good morning, friend.

I. Changing My Mind

Six years ago this week I was traveling through Vietnam and Cambodia. I remember the street food, the hostels and beaches, and biking through the rain.

But nearly 50 years before that, the first American troops were wading onto the beaches north of Da Nang as we entered the Vietnam war. The idea of traveling to Hanoi for pleasure was out of the question just one generation prior. As a culture, we change our minds as politics change.

In a recent conversation with my family, we discussed the imcomplete story we alllearned about Christopher Columbus. That he was actually offered 10% of all the riches he “acquired” which incentivize stealing. Purposefully introducing deadly diseases. And enslaving and murdering Native people. As a nation, we change our minds as more complete stories emerge.

Parenting during COVID has meant that I have less time for work, so I've been restructuring my days. I've been setting and achieving less goals and instead focusing my day around habits and processes. Not outcomes. It's helped me rethink what I'm committed to and how I'm spending my time. As individuals, our minds change as we gain new experiences.

The more we learn, the more we change our mind.

This month, I’m thinking about how and why our minds change. About issues, about objects, about people, and about the world and our place in it.

Let’s explore it together.

*“No Need to Be Rich" by* *Ángela Burón*

II. Open or Closed

I used to think that anything open was better.

Open eyes. Open arms. Open heart.

(Open invitation! Open source! Open door policy! Open bar!)

And of course, an open mind.

Taylor Mali, one of my favorite poets, writes:

That changing your mind is one of the best ways

of finding out whether or not you still have one.

Or even that minds are like parachutes,

that it doesn’t matter what you pack

them with so long as they open

at the right time.

But something I’ve learned in the last few years is that one way to open my mind is considering how the other side is right. No one believes they are wrong or hypocritical. So how might I be wrong?

"Open" is typically a metaphor for opportunity, acceptance. Adaptability and learning. But how can the opposite also be true?

"Closed" can mean skeptical and doubtful. That could be seen as helpful. Asking more critical questions to learn a deeper truth and understand the world and each other in new ways. Being closed-off to certain feedback while you're working. Saying no to certain people in your life.

Open office plan? Great for reducing visual hierarchy. Terrible for focus and stress.

Open relationship? Not ideal for everyone.

“Let’s give [insert historical authoritative dictator or autocrat here] a chance. He can’t possibly mean what he says. It won’t be that bad.” That kind of openness can lead to pain or suffering or even death in a world of genocide, police brutality, and pandemics. It's opening Pandora’s Box.

We can also talk about restaurants and airports being literally “open." Like everyone, I miss going for walks without a mask, sitting at my favorite restaurant for a couple hours, drinking a beer with friends, and getting on an airplane. But considering the other side for a second, let’s challenge the idea that we need to reopen restaurants and offices and schools. Why we’re not looking for a solution to help people pay for groceries, educational supplies, and forgive rent and debt right now is beyond me. As a culture, we’re prioritizing the economy and businesses over saving people’s lives. (But if I’m going to change any minds about capitalism, I think I'll have to save it for another refrigerator.)

We’re taught to believe that “open” is better. But the paradox of being open to new ideas is to also be open to the idea that being closed can also be a good thing.

As we learn, grow, and change our mind– in fact in order to do so–we should be considering how the other side might be right, too.

*"Let’s Talk About Race" by* *Chris Buck*

III. Good Grief

I’ve never thought of myself as racist. I can’t think of a time when I used a racial slur or purposefully mistreated anyone of color. But like many Americans right now, I’m reading a lot about race and racism. In her book “Me and White Supremacy”, Layla Saad introduced me to the concept of white exceptionalism: the belief that some white people feel exempt from being racist because they’re not in the KKK or never used a racist slur. “One of the good ones.”

That was me.
I'm in denial.

I came to the realization that in a lot of ways I have supported white supremacy as a system. That being a white cis straight man, I benefit from living in a white supremacist system that gives me more advantages and opportunities and belonging than BIPOC and have often been silent in times when I could have spoken up.

Now I'm feeling guilty.

About the decisions in my career, in my relationships, in hiring and casting, and conversations I’ve chosen to have and not have about race.

I started to see a pattern in my feelings.

Denial. Guilt. Anger...

I was beginning to experience the 7 steps of grief.

Denial and shock.
Pain and guilt.
Anger.
Depression.
Upward Turn.
Reconstruction.
Acceptance and Hope.

Looking at that list, these steps are not just the grief in overcoming the death of a loved one. These are the steps in changing our mind, too!

Learning about becoming more anti-racist, I’m hoping that most (white) people right now are on this path with me. Opening their eyes to the ongoing injustice and continuing to feel guilt and anger.

Grief is an interesting framework for this path because changing our mind is about loss. Our identity is tied tightly to our worldview. And as the tectonic plates of our belief systems begin to shift– as we change our mind about big issues–our identity changes too. We lose a part of ourselves.

So as each of us learns more about racism, about democracy and corruption, about ourselves and our place in the world, I hope we can all move through the stages of grief to come out with new worldviews and identities.

Two quick reminders:

You can’t avoid grief. The only way past it is to go through it.
Working through grief is easiest when you do it with other people.

IV. Change Always Wins

Flip on the news. Our world is changing.

We will not come out of the COVID experience the same. We will not exit the Black Lives Matter movement in the same situation as when it started 7 years ago. The Trump administration is changing who we are as individuals and as a country.

As society begins to shift, two groups tend to take form. The group that wants the change to happen and the group that wants things the way they are.

But wait. Let’s take a quick detour and we’ll come back to these two groups in a second.

There’s a concept in political philosophy called The Overton Window. It’s basically the range of appropriate action the government can take from the unthinkable to the popular. It’s a politician’s job to identify that range and create policies that fall within it.

But outside influencers like lobbyists and activists aim to expand the window. So a concept like universal health care, which once was unthinkable, is now on the table as existing and potential policy. In the last decade in the US, we’ve seen things like same-sex marriage and marijuana become legal. In the decade before that, prisoner torture and bank bailouts.

When an unthinkable belief is brought up, unless it is outright rejected, The Overton Window is opened and will continue to open wider. (See our current president and the news cycle. Another argument in favor of “closed.”)

Ok let’s come back to those two groups: the one side that opposes change and the one that seeks it.

With enough organized action, funding, and patience, change always wins. I can’t think of a time in history when the people who were on the side of stasis won. (If you can, please share!) Societies change their mind about what is acceptable over time. Popular beliefs and actions evolve. Laws get rewritten. And our world moves on, hopefully in what we would consider progress.

Sure, there are times of regression.

But on a long enough timeline, the side of stasis always loses.

Originally, my intention when writing this was to make an invitation to be on the side of change. To choose the winning team and to embrace change. But I’m not going to do that. I see the merit in sticking to one’s values and staying strong in one’s beliefs. We don’t always need to be on the winning team.

So instead, I will end with one of my favorite quotes about the topic by US Army general Eric Shinseki: If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more.

V. Changing Each Other’s Minds

Thanks for taking time to open up and dig into the refrigerator. This month and every month. I keep doing this because I really enjoy the process of learning and exploring new topics and starting deeper conversations with you. So if you have something to share, a resource, an opposing thought, please share.

That’s how we change each other’s mind.

One email at a time.

With Gratitude,

Jake

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@jakekahana | jakekahana.com

RESOURCES

Like Lilly Like Wilson (Taylor Mali)

The Benefits of Close-Mindedness (Less Wrong)

The Benefits of Being Closed-Minded (Psychology Today)

7 Stages of Grief (Talk Death)