yeah being open to ideas is sometimes the only way to go. its okay to take up contrary ideas if you trust in some process of resolution that will happen. at first you wouldn’t trust this to happen, and you may want to force the resolution. but even just working on math problems this can be the wrong route. sometimes you need to give it time and have patience. ill take the math problem analogy a little further. just like there can be different takes on issues, you could see different methods to approach a problem. they might both seem promising, but neither of them really satisfactory. this is like being stuck between arguments that are at odds with each other, but each appealing in their own way. but maybe the right method will be different than both of these, or one will prove to be the key, and the other one useless, or you will need some elements from both. just because you cant determine this now, doesn’t mean clarity wouldn’t hit you later.
so let the reconciling part happen on its own terms. but for the meanwhile, read as much you can that seems interesting. whatever you dont manage to understand, dont write about. whatever you felt you settled your mind on, great, you probably have some good things to say about that because it was a settlement of strong ideas that opposed each other.
here’s a good part from jean jacques rousseaus memoir on how he studied
I began with some philosophical treatise, such as the Logic of Port-Royal, Locke’s Essay, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Descartes, &c. I soon observed that all these authors nearly always contradicted each other, and I conceived the fanciful idea of reconciling them, which fatigued me greatly, and made me lose considerable time. I muddled my head without making any progress. At last, abandoning this plan, I adopted one that was infinitely better, to which I attribute all the progress which, in spite of my want of talent, I may have made; for it is certain that I never had much capacity for study. As I read each author, I made a practice of adopting and following up all his ideas, without any admixture of my own or of those of anyone else, and without ever attempting to argue with him.
I did not find that my critical faculties had lost their vigour owing to my having begun to exercise them late; and, when I published my own ideas, I have never been accused of being a servile disciple, or of swearing in verba magistri.
yeah being open to ideas is sometimes the only way to go. its okay to take up contrary ideas if you trust in some process of resolution that will happen. at first you wouldn’t trust this to happen, and you may want to force the resolution. but even just working on math problems this can be the wrong route. sometimes you need to give it time and have patience. ill take the math problem analogy a little further. just like there can be different takes on issues, you could see different methods to approach a problem. they might both seem promising, but neither of them really satisfactory. this is like being stuck between arguments that are at odds with each other, but each appealing in their own way. but maybe the right method will be different than both of these, or one will prove to be the key, and the other one useless, or you will need some elements from both. just because you cant determine this now, doesn’t mean clarity wouldn’t hit you later.
so let the reconciling part happen on its own terms. but for the meanwhile, read as much you can that seems interesting. whatever you dont manage to understand, dont write about. whatever you felt you settled your mind on, great, you probably have some good things to say about that because it was a settlement of strong ideas that opposed each other.
here’s a good part from jean jacques rousseaus memoir on how he studied