Observe: The Frontiers are everywhere!

The minute you read the word ‘Frontier’, you probably thought of a border separating two countries. Well, you aren’t wrong at all. But could it mean something more? Some boundaries that exist but aren’t visible? Wait, what does that mean? Perhaps, some frontiers that do impact your life personally, however, they aren’t outright obvious? Could it be that it’s some of the frontiers themselves obscuring your view from seeing a different reality? Let’s find out cogently!

To begin with, remind yourself of the last incident you passed an opinion on. It could be blasting a new government policy or calling a bunch of companies ‘capitalistic suckers.’ Or it could be hitting out on socialist policies curbing individual uniqueness and protesting against a barrier that you think exists.

Now before you pass an opinion that this is a political post, let’s delve into some other examples. Calling out on a fashion ‘old-school’ because ‘who wears that anymore!?’ or dismissing the new music because ‘who listens to this crap!?’ Rolling eyes over the vegetarians because ‘where’s the real food?’ or watching the ‘meat-eater’ with disgust because ‘what an inconsiderate, inhuman’ way to live.

Do you see a pattern in the examples picked here? They belong to the opposite ends of the spectrum. And it’s not just that only the extremes exist, there’s a whole bunch in between, but picking the most contrastive ones makes the point to prove here just clearer.

By the way, if even one of these examples hit a little too close to you, then we are on the right track!

Let’s face it, we make decisions every day. From choosing the first drink for the day, whether it’s going to be water or coffee; to choosing the people you want to associate yourself with. We do it, every single day. And is this the case only for the last few thousand years?

Nope. Some ancestor back then chose to climb a tree, when being chased by a sabretooth and the other one chose to run on the ground planning to outrun the beast. Maybe one of them survived or maybe both or none of them.

But what they couldn’t afford at all, was to be indecisive. They made some decisions based on their frontiers of understanding and very well it did have an impact on their lives!

Now the daily decisions that we make may not be so ‘visibly’ impactful. And sometimes it just doesn’t matter what judgement you pass about it. The point here is that we pass our judgements or make a decision and never even realise it. And the moment we do it, we establish the frontier within our mind in that respective domain.

The whole idea here is that beyond this frontier lies the unknown, the unexplored. We can make our opinions about it; staying within the existing frontiers or actually crossing them or by simply informing ourselves more.

Now actions count way more than thoughts. So, crossing the frontiers by acting out seems the most practical option. Want to find out how sky-diving feels? Do it! How does it feel after a day-long trek? Try it. But it’s not every time that you have a reversible trying option.

You don’t want to try a pack of 20 cigarettes a day for a month, just to find out how does a heavy chain smoker feels!? Well, not a problem if you want to do it. But maybe not for the sake of exploring ‘the frontier?’

Aha! Did you just see that we made a decision right here!? What was it based on? Some information about the effects of heavy smoking on the lungs. In this case, we crossed the frontier but took a careful glance at it from a height; where the information was available. Bingo!

Would it be not great that we make decisions based on credible information every time? So that we can expand the mental frontiers and establish firm reasoning over why we want to do an activity or don’t want to do it? Moreover, doing this activity based on reasoning beyond your previous understanding of the topic?

Wouldn’t that make you wiser than yesterday?

This all seems very obvious but it is apparently not! We fall for narratives all the time.

How many times do we just follow a trend because it exists?

“This way of studying has worked for me; I’ll continue doing it.” “That’s how the old generations have thought, they can’t be right about anything!” “The new generation will never understand the values of loyalty and sacrifice!”

Want some more?

“Of course, he is from XYZ country he can do it.” “Of course, he is from my country, he won’t do it.”

“It’s always done this way in my culture, that must be the right way.” Or “All the traditions of my culture represent tyranny; I will not even think of a single one of them.” The funny part here is that they all are just narratives based on half baked, less informed opinions.

So where do we go from here, with this piece of information? Maybe the next time you are at a crossroads to decide about absolutely anything; take some time to find at least one piece of information on both sides of the argument.

Let your frontiers about your respective topic expand. And then make the decision; knowing that you know more about it than you did yesterday. But bearing in mind that there could be more that you don’t know. Only then a piece of information becomes a pint of wisdom.

An example where I fell for a narrative:

Researching and working with machine learning topics, I had adopted a narrative that Yann LeCun (one of the top researchers in the field) can never be wrong or propose a research work that’s not state of the art! But this very week I read that one of his research proposal papers got rejected and one of the established research projects is not really path-breaking, high performing as ‘I expected.’ But wait? Who sold me that narrative? I just grabbed it out of nowhere, reading his name all over Twitter. That’s what I am talking about!

Maybe the same research work could be accepted tomorrow, maybe not!? Probably a wiser choice for me is to stay informed!

To sum it up; if you hear people talking about a river flowing nearby, you don’t take the info as truth, nor do you dismiss it completely. Look out for the birds chirping and the sound of water flowing; maybe climb a mountain to inspect the frontier yourself, and then make the decision whether it’s a river or a stream. Or whether the water even flows or it’s just a pond! And if the sound heard is coming from the same river or not! 🙂