(Up to: The Self Vs The Truth Taoism )

Humility and non-competition seem to be the hardest traits to master, perhaps as a result of a competitive society that ranks one person higher than another, based on their perceived performance, or perhaps simply due to something more basic and naturally selfish. However, I have noticed that the desire to tell people that they are wrong is incredibly strong, which itself results in arrogance, shortness and polemic pride, none of which are particularly helpful or constructive in every day life or in dealings with others.

Even within an environment that seeks an attention to the truth above all else, the ease with which we fall back to derision and mocking pride, rather than understanding and teaching, is all too common. The lure of knowing that oneself is right, when such a chance is so rare, is too great to resists exploiting.

But there is no gain from this individual ascernment, there is only gain through learning, through the act of understanding more than one understood before. Even if one does not necessarily agree with all faces of a concept, or a point of view, it is vital that we strive to realise where that alternative has arisen from, for such things are intricately causal in nature, and never by any means simply a random misdemeanour into some world of falsehoods and disillusionment. Beliefs should be studied and analysed as with any other fact being presented, for whether we like them or not, these things exist, and all facets of them should be held to a microscope if we are to benefit or improve anything.

We cannot simply discard other points of view because they are different from ours, just as we cannot simply ignore tangible objects in our world that we do not want to be there. We must cope with them, either by moving them, or by accepting them into our own actions. We must ask why, and be unafraid to ask in the first place.

Once we have realised that our own way is just one of many, we must deal with the issue of presenting it, interacting it with those others. The arrogance of questioning, above, is different to the arrogance of interaction, if only slight.

Perhaps we should see every single discussion as a new field to explore, no matter whether we have refined it to a sharp point many times before. The importance here is not to recover ground again and again, but to carry forward the ideas attained from one instance into another similar, but arbitrarily variable future case, for no two discussions are ever exactly the same. The importance is in approaching all material as a series of questions, the answers to which may entail previous realms. It is through this questioning approach that we can find the understanding we need to achieve a humility of opinion, and a confidence in our own thought.

(See also: Dealing With Fools )