A few years ago, I did a personal experiment: completely eliminating stereotypes. I thought that when we look at objects, the stereotypes we have about them create unintended biases. While that’s true in itself, there were points I was missing.

1. When we “perceive” something, we actually need a lot of other information we hold
2. And that information can only be retrieved from information we have previously “perceived”

Since I didn’t consider those points, the result was actually more confusion, and I gradually moved closer to a nihilistic thought that “I can’t say anything about anything.” This is a philosophy that fundamentally contradicts several principles I have about “growth.” To grow, you need to derive many outputs as much as you take in, and from the various experiences gained in that process, draw new directions. In other words, the most meaningful thing is the output you actually produce, but based on a nihilistic perspective, whatever I put out is meaningless, so I give up.

Moreover, even if I overcome such nihilism and don’t give up based on infinite energy, I came to think that such stereotypes are actually close to the process of using existing knowledge when learning new knowledge, so there’s plenty of room to actively use them.

However, since the problem of stereotypes that comes with actively using existing knowledge still persists, I’m solving this by “having a more open mind and deeply accepting that I am a mass of stereotypes.”

This way, I can actively accept two or more thoughts that come from a single phenomenon and it seems to help understand the duality of a single object.

Also, an unexpected gain was gaining confidence that I can do anything by reducing my own stereotypes.