The elephant

I'm struggling with this entry. I started with 5-6 paragraphs of stream of consciousness trying to get to my intended topic,  have deleted/rewritten it several times over a period of 5-6 days. This is taking too long. So here goes:

This is a look into how we form our opinions/beliefs/expectations about things. This is important because this is where we learn to be afraid about the unknown.

These thoughts originated from hearing differing accounts from various homeless people about their experience, specifically about how much trust/friendship that can be found. One person's experience was that other homeless people he encountered generally looked out for each other. Another person's experience was that homeless people all preyed on each other.

We are typically bombarded by opinions/reviews hoping to shape our thinking, much of it unsolicited. In a lot of instances, it's helpful to have that as a frame of reference to help set reasonable expectations; it's a bad idea to walk down a dark alley a night, etc.  You can get as much feedback as you can from as many people you know, but it can still turn out like the story/parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each blind man touches only a part of the elephant and assumes that they have a complete understanding of what an elephant is. The problem is that no one realizes that their blindness prevents them from seeing how their experience is the total of reality.

Perhaps the opinions we need to seek most are feedback on our blind spots.