The Two Most Important Ideas I Ever Pondered

Barry Kort

Consider, if you will, the two most important ideas I ever pondered.

  1. Could it be that feelings are a guidance system which, if interpreted correctly, guides each and every one of us toward the best (safest, fastest growth, most enjoyable, most rewarding) path through life. Could it be that every communication is perforce a feedback message (including non-response to an initial communication). Positive feedback is fine: it suggests that we are on the right path. But it seems to me that a negative feedback message, in order to be useful (meaningful) would have to explicitly contain (or clearly imply) two parts. First, the specific behavior (or nonbehavior) in question and the direction in which change is desired. Moreover, it seems to me that it would help to motivate a behavior change if the real reason behind a negative feedback message were also communicated and fully understood. If the real reason cannot be discovered or understood, then a behavior change might not be motivated, and instead another negative feedback message might be returned, which if it omitted any of the three parts, might also be rejected, thereby generating an unending stream of bad feelings, until one of the parties changed their behavior in a desired manner.

  2. What would happen if I took as goal: To make every interaction between myself an another person one in which the expected outcome would benefit us mutually and as equally as possible? What would I have to know about the other person to calculate the best course of action in order to guide our interaction toward mutual betterment?

Question: Does anyone else agree with these ideas? Are there any obvious flaws in the ideas, other than those implied by the limitations of our own knowledge? How could the ideas be applied to remedy that limitation? How could the ideas be better stated? Are the implications obvious? I would be most appreciative to hear the comments of others as to the usefulness of these ideas, along with any suggestions for improving them or testing them to see how well they work.