Tuesday, October 16, 2007

When we see the blood prior to the cut

It's remarkable how excellent our estimation skills are. We are able to predict precisely how somebody will react to a special action we take. Most of the time we'll be right. We just might not realise it because we're stupid. But we're right. I might also relieve you, you're not stupid - not for planning ahead, we just do it so often we don't even realise that we're doing it at all. We look, contemplate, guess and act in order to see our future the way we planned it seconds ago.
We run on neat little pattern matching algorithms with forward prediction. Based on experience we act to build up a better future - for ourselves. The better you get, the more challenging it can be.

So it might happen that we're wrong. This can be really hard to realise when you're totally sure about yourself and your decisions. It's possible to fool yourself completely with such things. For example you saw a dish on the menu but you read it wrong. You make up your own picture of what to expect. After some time, when you finally get your disappointment you think you're misunderstood. This works with food, online shopping, weapons of mass destruction - almost everything.

To question everything you do might not be a good solution. You'll only appear slow and maybe a bit retarded. I'd go for hoping the best but expecting the worst, but let me know when you're completely able to do that.
Don't ask obvious questions if you don't like the answer!

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