Skip to main content

Challenging Cognitive Biases


To say that we only see what we want to see is not a mistake, but a human condition. We walk through the world not as impartial observers, but as sculptors of reality, carving existence with the chisel of our own beliefs.

It is not a whim or a factory defect, but an intrinsic bias: we seek that which confirms what we already believe and avoid what challenges our convictions. It is a form of mental economy, a shortcut of thought. Accepting the familiar and the coherent demands little from us. But facing the contradictory—ah, that is exhausting, it requires energy, it forces us to confront the possibility that we might be wrong.

Between what has just happened around you and what you remember happening, there is more space for everything that disturbed you than for reality itself.

Such bias, however, need not be a cage. If we see it not as a wall but as a starting point, we can use it to grow. It is like the stabilisers on a child’s bicycle: they provide security in the learning process, but must eventually be removed for the true experience of cycling to take place.

The key lies in our willingness to be wrong, to make space for the unexpected, to allow new ideas to pass through us without fear of dismantling what we already know. This openness begins with awareness of our bias and expands with an attitude of curiosity: rather than proving we are right, we should seek to experience the new, to ask questions without the rush for definitive answers.

And perhaps, in the vast mosaic of reality, we may come to see not only what we want to see, but what we never knew existed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What Winter Asks

Lately, I’ve found myself anticipating winter — not because it is here, but because its presence has begun to register. A shift in tone. A quiet deviation from the familiar. We are still within autumn, yes, but the pattern is clear: a cooling, a thinning of light, a withdrawal. Winter does not arrive with grandeur. It infiltrates. It operates in intervals — a guest that does not overstay, yet rearranges the room all the same. It brings with it not only the chill, but a quiet audit of our habits. Our homes, designed for air and openness, falter in the face of this visitor. We adjust. Coats reappear. Blankets are retrieved from high places. Improvisation becomes method: Havaianas with woollen socks. Soup, made not only to nourish but to ground. This is where hygge emerges — not as aesthetic, but as principle. The deliberate act of creating warmth within transience. A structured comfort, built from attentiveness. Outside, clouds obscure the light. Inside, a countermeasure: sof...

On slowing time: multivitamins, acupuncture, and the art of ageing well

A major randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, recently published, has demonstrated that daily multivitamin supplementation may decelerate biological ageing, as assessed by epigenetic markers. Conducted by researchers at Columbia University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the study followed over 2,200 participants aged sixty and above for a period of two years, evaluating the long-term effects of daily micronutrient intake. Epigenetic age — distinct from chronological age — was estimated via DNA methylation, a biomarker increasingly recognised for its accuracy in gauging biological ageing. The results revealed a marked slowing of this process among those receiving the multivitamin: on average, participants exhibited approximately two years less biological ageing when compared with their counterparts in the placebo group. These findings lend weight to the hypothesis that subtle yet chronic micronutrient deficiencies may hasten the ageing process, even in the a...

The Navel and the Whole

In the course of daily life, concepts such as knowledge, self-knowledge, and the practice of goodness ought never to be forgotten. Yet not only are they neglected — they are actively abandoned, especially when they stand at odds with the ambitions of humankind. And therein lies the blind spot of human pride: the self — the ever-contemplated navel. I see it manifest in the most absurd of circumstances, where there is no sincere interest in understanding the other. The affluent denigrate the poor; the poor resent the affluent. But where, I ask, is our shared humanity? Where is the recognition that the destiny of one is bound to the destiny of all? That recognition remains — dimmed, tucked away in some forgotten recess — awaiting the rekindling of light. When I welcome a homosexual patient, I see someone in search of that very light, navigating life in a conservative, restrictive city that offers little room to breathe. When I receive someone ensnared in substance use, I encou...