Misgivings

I had misgivings about posting yesterday's essay about sharpening comprehension and intuition via winnowing.

An epidemic has arisen out of isolation and narcissism stoked via the unholy trinity of devices, social media, and COVID quarantine: we prioritize our gut impressions, our flip assumptions, and our baseless conjecture above all else.

So a superficial read of my posting might make people think I'm urging everyone to trust their visceral impulses even more.

The world is not complex or subtle or surprising. You're fully on top of it, standing triumphantly astride the landscape, so stand confident, eschew subtlety, and go with your gut!

No. None of that. There is a vast difference between 1. Cursory dismissal of subtlety and surprise while brutishly elevating your ditzy mental noise, and 2. Canny, sensitive pruning of irrelevant choices in order to escape a state of confusion.

But even having explained this, the brutish will read my essay and shout "EXACTLY!"