Ramblings about Contradictions

We think of time being a convention of our physical universe while in reality the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. I can liken it to a large tapestry.  The bottom is the past, the middle is the present and the top is the future.  Looking at it, I can see it all at the same time. I can take in the whole panorama at once. I might notice how threads connect parts. Though there is this connection, one part doesn’t cause the other. Cause and effect are meaningless in that context.

If one could see all of history as a tapestry, acknowledging that it is all there at the same time, would it make sense to think of cause and effect?  Is that a bit like trying to reconcile to Newton to Einstein? Maybe.

One of the good things about knowing some people throughout a lifetime is being able to see a correlation with choices and events of the past with outcomes much later. That whole sentence implies cause and effect. I chose to call it “correlations” though.  There is a correlation between lung cancer and smoking. Maybe one doesn’t cause the other, or maybe ling cancer causes smoking?  Maybe the wind is caused by the trees swaying? 

I am not a trained psychologist, but I have learned a thing or two about people. I notice that it seems intuitive to want to understand WHY a certain behavior is occurring, as though we can somehow fix it if we know why it is happening.  It doesn’t work!  We can’t reach into the past and change what went down.  It seems to me psychotherapy is based on helping the patient understand why, but it also seems to me that psychotherapy doesn’t cure much. 

What seems to work better in fixing human issues is addressing WHAT and HOW.  When there is a behavior problem, rather than delving into the person’s background to see its origins, it appears to me to be more productive to frame it within the context of reality --- to see what its current effects are and to discover the thought patterns that are keeping the person trapped in their behavior. Many psychologists are aware of this, and it is why Glasser’s Reality Therapy has gained the traction it has.