{"id":85,"date":"2008-05-29T16:27:19","date_gmt":"2008-05-29T21:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/2008\/05\/29\/on-try-try-and-try-again\/"},"modified":"2009-03-30T11:18:43","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T15:18:43","slug":"on-try-try-and-try-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/2008\/05\/29\/on-try-try-and-try-again\/","title":{"rendered":"On Try, Try and Try Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.<\/span>– Abraham Lincoln<\/span><\/em>
\nI’ve always asked a question to myself; who was the second person to try blowfish? I mean, after the first person fell dead convulsing, did the other person just shrug and say: “It can’t happen to me?” This question goes fundamentally to the curiosity of the Human Race, and our ability to rationalize anything away.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This self delusion has a name, naturally. It’s called cognitive dissonanc<\/a>e and has actually been demonstrated in monkeys, humans and well, alot of other creatures. We lie to ourselves, we convince ourselves something happened (or didn’t happen) despite the evidence and we use it to overlook the faults of other. Some of you will recognize this last in others, or why you hate your friends significant other while they are “in love.”<\/p>\n

We’ve seen this in a story before, aka, sour grapes. The story of the fox who wanted some grapes and after trying all he could to get them, finally stated :”they were probably sour anyway.” This makes us feel good about ourselves, but why would it help with choices that are clearly life and death? After all, if someone takes a sip of pineapple juice then falls over dead, who takes the other sip?<\/p>\n

Which brings me to another part of the crazy human rationalizing: Shared pain. Ever notice when someone taste something bad they gag, spit it up, and then offer you some! <\/em>What rational is behind this cannot fully be explained by cognitive dissonance but it can be explained by the laugher afterward and the newly shared bond in telling the stories that accompany the subsequent re-tellings.<\/p>\n

Still, back to the question, for it is one of human curiosity and ability to keep going over adversary and rational choice. Why do we play the lotto after losing 18 in a row? why will , “one more try.” keep us going, and the odds, 100,000 to 1 mean we have “good chances” compared to the 200,000 to 1 game? Humans seem to exist in a place where wishful thoughts and reality collide. Yet somehow, we can prepare blowfish.<\/p>\n

I wonder who was the third guy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.– Abraham Lincoln I’ve always asked a question to myself; who was the second person to try blowfish? I mean, after the first person fell dead convulsing, did the other person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[294,280,281,279],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons","category-truthiness","tag-cognitive-dissonance","tag-death","tag-making-excuses","tag-rational"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}