Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

Trying to maintain an open mind is a daily exercise. So many variables come into our world, each bringing opportunity to create bias, modify our perspective, change our opinion, enlighten our overall purpose.

It is of course natural to have bias, stemming from each and every influence starting with our parents and expanding into the world in which we live and experience.

So the prospect of keeping an open mind becomes ever more difficult in the face of the stimuli that is so readily available to influence.

I think one of the biggest problems in our country and throughout the world at large, is the unwilling perspective to allow oneself to see things through the eyes of others. We, as a species, are very self-centric, thereby creating a natural predisposition to disregard opposing viewpoints in the attempt to continue to support that which we have decided we believe.

I don’t think any of us, starting with me, are able to take our mind to complete neutrality. I almost think that is impossible. But, the exercise of working to try and allow that neutrality to settle in, at least allows opportunity to try and see the world through opposite perspectives and enable us to work to a compromise that is a genuine win-win.

Given the overwhelming problems that continue to plague humanity, it would appear that only a global perspective will be viable towards saving us from the perils on the road ahead. In the last hundred years, it is very clear that society is getting closer and closer to a world Council because without such we will self-destruct.

Social media has aggregated human minds into a collective. It is like the Borg on Star Trek, which was a hive mentality. In reading a post on social media, our minds are filtering thoughts from so many others at such a rapid rate, the human species is evolving before our very eyes. And this cannot help but influence our bias.

Certainly, it would appear that allowing a more open mind would create a greater likelihood of finding commonality between all of us. But, as soon as you make a universal statement like that, it is very easy to find hundreds of examples of perspectives that others share that do not jibe with your reality. Witness The Q anon cult, for example.

Perhaps the best solution is to do your best to maintain an open mind as best as it is possible, allowing for the inevitable reality of encountering and potentially discarding countless opposing perspectives that are too extreme to be viable.

I hope your Monday is off to a wonderful start😊

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Written by Brian Weiner
When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!