Gullible or Skeptical?
May. 10th, 2005 06:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doctor6Which are you more afraid of: Being too gullible and believing things that aren't true, or being too skeptical and missing out on something important?
My, my! That's a rather convoluted question, don't you think? Wouldn't it be easier to simply ask whether I was gullible or skeptical? Not that I haven't had my moments of gullibility. Who hasn't? But gullibility is something that diminishes with experience. Skepticism fills that void rather easily. Which am I afraid of? Both, to be perfectly honest. In my position, I can't afford to be either too gullible or too skeptical. At the risk of sounding a braggart, sometimes entire civilizations -- even the Cosmos itself! -- could hang on the balance of a single decision left to me. It's daunting, to say the least. I shudder to think of what would happen if I made the wrong decision because I was too accepting or too close-minded. It could literally be catastrophic! Instead, I try to walk the middle ground and find that happy medium. Most of the time I succeed. But leaning too far to one extreme or the other? That does indeed frighten me. Because it means I am no longer being objective.
My, my! That's a rather convoluted question, don't you think? Wouldn't it be easier to simply ask whether I was gullible or skeptical? Not that I haven't had my moments of gullibility. Who hasn't? But gullibility is something that diminishes with experience. Skepticism fills that void rather easily. Which am I afraid of? Both, to be perfectly honest. In my position, I can't afford to be either too gullible or too skeptical. At the risk of sounding a braggart, sometimes entire civilizations -- even the Cosmos itself! -- could hang on the balance of a single decision left to me. It's daunting, to say the least. I shudder to think of what would happen if I made the wrong decision because I was too accepting or too close-minded. It could literally be catastrophic! Instead, I try to walk the middle ground and find that happy medium. Most of the time I succeed. But leaning too far to one extreme or the other? That does indeed frighten me. Because it means I am no longer being objective.
