If you have ever worked with scientific instruments, you know the importance of keeping them in calibration. And, you sure don’t want your vehicle’s gas gauge to register one-quarter full when it is almost empty! You expect it to be calibrated and stay that way.
It turns out that we need calibration, too: we sometimes need to calibrate our thoughts.
To illustrate, I’ll relate a recent personal experience. Last week I was reading some material on how our minds are not good at handling certain types of information, and how we underestimate/overestimate the occurrence of some things. Reading this material reinforced in my mind the view that we are biological flukes, an odd “accident” that occurred through some evolutionary mechanisms that are not yet fully understood.
Then, Saturday night I watched a Law & Order: SVU rerun about a group of homeless children, one of whom had witnessed their street-dad murder another young lady. When this “eye-witness child” was given some food, because she had not eaten for days, I cried. Not hard and not for long, but I cried. I do not cry easily. After Vickie passed away, I basically “cried myself out.” It generally takes a lot to move me.
But, starving children move me. The existence of their souls is so obvious. No matter how we came to be, we do have souls and we are of infinite worth and value. One can forget about that when getting lost in the technical details of how we think and behave.
How can we have souls, you say, if we just evolved from raw material? Beats me. Figure it out and you can claim your Nobel Prize and a martini to go.
Many modern theologians even say we have no souls: God just downloads our software somewhere at the time of our deaths.
Who knows? One thing I do know, when I look at people in need I feel deeply for them, not because of some biological imperative, but because there is something about people that transcends biology.
Why the hell can’t I remember that all the time?
I guess the key reason is that I frequently read material that challenges the way I think. I still think that is the right thing to do, and I encourage you to do it. But, we have to be aware that stretching our minds can thin our humanity, unless we periodically recalibrate.
Certainly another key factor is that of not having Vickie here anymore. When she was alive, I don’t think I ever went through these episodes. Her presence always reminded me how special people are, how special life is.
Anyway, I don’t know if any of this has meaning to you or not. Maybe you are fortunate and do not have these “calibration drifts” like I do. But, if you go through them from time to time, my suggestion is to expose yourself to people in need. Maybe that’ll help you get re-calibrated.
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