One of the greatest human qualities is a genuine openness to new ideas. Socrates perhaps pioneered the view that wisdom could consist in knowing how much you don't know, and being open to explore and learn.
Our problem, typically, though, is that our openness is limited and very temporary. I'm open to learn until I think I have, and then I quickly close down that particular aperture of openness and draw a map that I henceforth use to chart my way forward, with much less of a readiness to being further corrected or educated on the matter I now think I know. Maybe that's just me. But I suspect it's also a tendency in many other people. And when we have a map, we hold on to it tightly.
The problem is that pioneers have often been terrible map makers. The first explorers of any continent or island typically drew up very inaccurate maps of the new territory. It took other people, later on, to get things straight. And that gives me a nice metaphor for my own intellectual exploring. I shouldn't be so quick to think that the first map of a territory that I draw up mentally is just fine, and fully accurate. I shouldn't let it block further openness. A map is fine, and useful, but maybe it's better thought of as a place to start than as a place to end. Perhaps it shouldn't shut down my eagerness to learn and even change my mind, but rather spur it on.
Just a thought.
