I WANT NO CLONES!

Whenever I write, what I always end up writing is an opinion piece. It can be none other. And even though I explicitly noted that I was writing an “Opinion Piece” in a few recent articles, that is all I have ever written. It is also all I can write. Why? Because I can never write absolute truth. And for that matter, no one can. That’s not within our prerogative as human beings! If anyone thinks he can, well, he has a deep psychological problem. All we can write is from our perspective and out of our human fallibility.

When I write, I aim to do the best I can. I seek to write using my best knowledge, my best research skills, my best thinking skills, and my best intentions. I hope you do too when you write. And when I write, I don’t want clones! I want thinking men and women so that we can then have indepth conversations that get to the heart of things. That’s what I’ve been developing in Meta-Coaching since 2000. Actually, when I write articles or books, my goal is not to get you to agree with me—it is to get you to think. What you conclude is always your business and your conclusions do not have to agree with me. Actually, from time to time, I find that I don’t even agree with me—with my previous self. What I wrote at a certain time, while it may have been the best I could do at that time, I later found that it had certain flaws, and so I updated my thinking and my writing. (I often tell the story of finding four significant errors in the first volume of Meta-States—mistakes that I corrected in subsequent editions.)

What I want is intense dialogues where we can make an argument for or against something that we care about (and passionately care about), and then examine the quality of thinking which goes into those arguments. I want fierce conversations about things that matter where we can together identify and clean out any and all cognitive distortions, biases, and/or fallacies that contaminate our thinking and concluding. I want conversations with people who know how to stay calm, cool, compassionate, and respectful even when we radically disagree. Above and beyond agreeing, is being able to help each other think critically and creatively, because if we can do that, then we can together solve the big problems that face humanity. And then, everybody wins.

It is intolerance, rigidness, and dogmatism that stops healthy exchange of ideas. That does no one any good. Where there is intolerance, the conversation comes to an end. Actually intolerance prevents a dialogue from ever beginning. Now people push for conformity of thinking.

“You must see things my way. If you don’t, then you are bad and you may be my enemy. If so, then I have the right to attack you and use any means to force compliance to my ideas.”

If the step after an intellectual intolerance is dogmatism and demanding compliance, the step after that is violence, physically hurting or attacking people who disagree. Now we are back in

the “Dark Ages” where we are trying to solve differences with inquisitions, torture, and wars. Interesting enough, we are not all that far removed from the Dark Ages. In many ways, we are still living there.

When people learn how to truly think—to openly, curiously, and critically think—then we can talk about anything. Nothing is off the table. After all, our talking is externalizing our thinking and our thinking is the heart and soul of our meaning-making. We are making a map using our intelligence and experience and skills and hopefully, to the best of our ability. We are not dictating a new set of commandments.

When we share out thinking with each other, we are thinking out-loud in the presence of others. Now we can bounce our ideas off of each other. In that way, we allow our meanings to flow through them and their meanings to flow through us. That’s the literal breakdown of the word dialogue— dia (through) and logos (word or meaning). And it is through effective and respectful dialogue that we can come to know and understand each other. That’s what every client in coaching wants, needs, and expects.

So, let there be no clones! Let’s put away any goal such as seeking to get others to conform to our thinking. That’s not a winning formula. After all, we can all be wrong on something and when we are, increasing the numbers of those who agree with us does not get us closer to the truth, and in fact, may blind us to our need to think and re-think. Let’s define success as thinking individuals talking together who share differences in perspectives and solutions.