Blindness and Confusion
Blindness
We all have blind spots. We can't understand, comprehend, or visualize that to which we are blind. We need someone to help us. Blind spots are normal, natural, and common, but they limit us. Books, lectures, and recordings can help us see new possibilities for learning, and so can asking a friend or co-worker for an honest assessment of our actions. We must stop being blind to our blindness.
Confusion
However, while trying to learn we may confuse opinions with learnedness and mistake awareness for competence. An opinion is not the same as a thought. Human beings endlessly churn out opinions about every aspect of their lives. This is natural and normal, but it's not the same thing as thinking.
Thinking is the process of generating an original idea or distinction. Thinking requires energy and attention; having an opinion requires neither. Under the sway of our opinions, moreover, we wall ourselves off from learning as we think that because we have an opinion about something, we must "know" it.
A related enemy appears when we confuse awareness with learning; we mistakenly assume that a new awareness automatically equates to a new competence. The attainment of awareness and the development of competence are two entirely different processes. The main failing of most personal or professional development work is that it settles for providing you with awareness as opposed to building new competence.
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Craving for Understanding but Reluctance to Begin
