If you had to tell someone from a hundred years ago the strangest thing about modern society, what would it be? According to a joke, which is all too true, the strangest thing about modern society is that we hold in our pockets a device that can access all the knowledge from all human history, but use the device to argue with strangers and look at pictures of cats. Although we can access an abundance of wisdom, we more often choose to live in a bubble of ignorance, or worse, false belief. Information is disseminated so quickly that it is impossible to process all of it. As such, we use our filters to decide which information to believe, what to ignore, what to act upon and what to dispute.

The world of information overload is being used to spread falsehood and deceit at an incomprehensible scale. Consistent attacks on traditional media outlets have led people to confuse the slanting of news stories with outright lies. These lies are repeated so often that many people believe them to be true. The ignorant may haphazardly stumble through an unobserved life, but it is the misinformed that truly disturb our ability to achieve harmony.

In Plato’s allegory of the cave, a group of people are chained to the ground staring at the shadows on the wall. One man is freed, who then exits the cave and sees the splendor of the real world. He returns to those still chained to the floor to tell them of this glorious new environment, but they do not believe him. They are convinced that the shadows on the wall are all that exist.

We find ourselves in a time where we have become the people chained to the ground. People who have seen a clearer reality come through and tell us of a better world, but we disregard them because we live the illusion of our shadows. We are convinced our own perception is a clear understanding of things as they are. Our own prejudice clouds our judgement and old mental models preclude the development of brighter paths forward.

In his “Discourse on Method”, Descartes ponders reality, what he can know and what may be an illusion. His famous, “I think, therefore I am.” proclamation may seem fundamental to most of us, but it is indeed a profound starting point for the discernment of truth and knowledge. There is little else you can prove for which there is no reasonable means of refutation or skeptical regress. His well-known statement is the foundation of what he discovers as an irrefutable truth.

The work of Descartes has been refuted and confirmed by minds much more knowledgeable than mine, nor do I seek to debate the existence of the world itself. However, I think his method of questioning everything until you get to the fundamental essence is a lesson we can all learn from. If we are not skeptical about our own observations, cognitions, and precepts about the world, we fall into a trap of arrogance in which we believe our view of the world is the ultimate truth.

The visible universe demonstrates this fact. There was a time when a king asked what the world was made of, to which a sage responded, “everything is made of earth, wind, fire and water.” This understanding persisted for centuries, as on the surface, it is near impossible to refute this statement. But as time moves on, human understanding deepens. Today, we know there are things not made of these elements, and that in fact, these elements themselves are made of other elements. Newton’s laws of motion give way to Einstein’s theory of relativity, so on and so forth. Therefore, while most of us cannot validly refute that everything is made of earth, wind, fire and water, there are some who nevertheless have been able to see further into the real nature of our universe. The old way of thinking is now viewed as a primitive simplification of reality.

We use simplifications almost constantly. Our world is too large and too complex to fully understand its entirety, so our minds have developed shortcuts to provide useful information out of the overwhelming complexity that comprises the real world. Our own observations, experiences, and thoughts merge together to form our own unique representation of reality. While these simplifications and shortcuts are necessary for us to function in an expansive universe, they also give rise to inaccurate bias and prejudice in our interpretation of events.

Acknowledging our view of the world is an incomplete simplification brings into question the certainty of our own beliefs and actions. How do we know that our own prejudice is not clouding our judgment? Have we been reasonably skeptical of the perception of reality our mind has created for us? Should we be so hasty to convince others of our beliefs, rather than first understanding where our beliefs may have led us to a short-sighted conclusion?

In his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Steven Covey explains the need for us first to seek to understand before trying to be understood. We too often listen to people only with the intention of crafting our next counterpoint. This is not seeking to understand. Truly evaluating what a person is saying, asking questions to know why they are saying it, getting to know their story and how it influences what is being said, these are the steps in seeking to understand. We do not engage enough in these actions. Instead, we use cookie cutter assumptions to put people into a digestible box, so we don’t have to think too much about the more challenging questions that arise when we seek understanding. Our own bias and prejudice clouds our judgment. We don’t pull the plank out of our own eye before criticizing the speck in our neighbors’. We continue to look at the shadows on the wall and believe they accurately represent reality.

What’s even worse is how little time we spend seeking to understand ourselves. Descartes’ statement of, “I think. Therefore, I am.”, naturally gives rise to a follow up question, “what am I?”, or perhaps more importantly, “what do I want to become?”. We spend so much time absorbing information from the external environment, that we have lost our sense of self-reflection. We’re becoming a mirror image of the world our media sources select for us, rather than becoming the unique, productive, and self-contented individuals we were created to be. By intentionally creating time for self-understanding, we begin to build the foundation to understand others. We start to see the light, or at least begin to understand that we’re looking at shadows.

So, what does this all mean beyond the philosophical nonsense? How does this apply to our lives? Well, personally, I’ve been taking the time over the past several months to get away from the social media scrolls and 24-hour news cycles. I’ve replaced the time reading news columns that will be outdated tomorrow with reading classics that have withstood hundreds, if not thousands of years. I’ve been trying to argue less and listen more. I’ve been taking more time to be silent, more time in prayer and more time in meditation. I’m am happier now than when I started. I’m am quicker to listen, slower to speak, and slower to become angry. I may not be able to always see reality clearly, but I am better at recognizing the times when I’m staring at shadows.

So, the next time you are about to criticize someone, try to make sure you understand them first. Before ruling out the possibility of a course of action, make sure your own bias isn’t clouding your judgment. Before you put someone in the box of your pre-constructed mental models, make sure you’re not staring at a shadow. Take the time to turn around and see the person who that shadow belongs to. In doing so, you see the world a little more clearly, your neighbor a little more compassionately and yourself a little more humbly.