When a matter is black and white, like mathematics, I’m ok. But when it comes to areas of life that are open to debate, I am lost. A lazy mind is what some people might call it.
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Black and white thinking is a symptom.
According to this poll I did 60% of us suffer from it.
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I didn’t realize it is a symptom. But that does make sense.
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lots of grey areas on my head lol
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yes i can have difficulty with this also.
I wouldn’t call it laziness but rather a lack of energy, low cognitive skills or things like that. I used to think black and white because it didn’t require me much effort to think. As I get better it becomes easier to think so that won’t lead me to a black-and-white thinking.
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What are some life examples of black and white thinking?
Besides mathematics, taking sides in war is black and white. All love and hate, like I love apples, I hate bananas. Thinking that doesn’t have any give and take to it.
Oh. I guess I’m guilty of black and white thinking. I thought everyone was either for or against something. It’s interesting to find out how many parts of me are “symptoms” when I thought everyone was the very same.
I think it can be methodical contrasts, too, like female/male, good/evil, virtue/vice. It’s hard for me to even think of many others right now.
It’s like we can’t get all A’s or F’s in life. We get a lot of C’s.
Question, "Did you get the job done?"
Answer. “Yes, but not very well.”
It’s “the Law of Excluded Middle,” to my mind. No gray area between the poles of black and white. It’s either all good or all bad, with nothing in between. Aristotle wasn’t very sophisticated in this view.
I’ve had a hard time of it, myself. Why can’t humans just say what they mean instead of what they say? As I start to volunteer more and more, I must learn to curb my insensitive? tongue. I don’t mean to be mean and I’m taken out of context far too many times.
I think I am guilty of this as well. I tend to evaluate people as all good or all bad, relationships as should end or should not end (no “maybe we should talk about it”).
I once wrote a poem full of contradictions that got to a hairsplitting level. It was 9pp and exhausting to write and just as bad to read. I was on Orap, which didn’t help with the splitting at the time (2006). I pasted it in an email to a coworker and she said it wore her out from its “depth of thought.” So yeah, splitting was painful for me and those who had to listen. Lately, I haven’t noticed myself making lists of contraries, etc. It was a phase I went thru, and out of my control until 2009, when I forced myself to unify opposites to create the gray continuum…
I think the very first black and white thought is “I don’t like people.” which doesn’t encourage further thought.
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