In anticipation of a post in the near future (hopefully) on the broad contours of my psychological perspective for why we do, think, and feel the way we do, I want to add another disclaimer of sorts.
Most things and all the problems and solutions I will be discussing occur on continuums or to different degrees in various people at any given time. Even though I know this I still state some things as though they do not have exceptions or degrees and other times I add qualifying words, such as generally, typically, normally, etc.
It turns out both ways are problematic. We generally want certainties and adding the qualifiers or acknowledging the continuum makes us uncomfortable and often reject whatever the idea is without further consideration. It can also get us so distracted on the continuum that we lose sight of the big picture where all the different things on continuums operate and come together. Whereas denying the continuum in order to have the certainty we seek denies reality and often keeps us from seeing how a general principle applies to us, because we know it is not absolute in us.
My point with adding this post is to say that there is no perfect solution to this problem. So if when you are reading something I write you think, he should have acknowledged exceptions to that or that it is not absolute like he acts like it is, know you might be right and go ahead and make that change for yourself. Likewise if you are reading something I qualify with words like, generally or often, and you are uncomfortable with the qualifying, again go ahead and make the change for yourself. That may be more helpful to you at that point.
Helping ourselves come to some workable understanding of ourselves and having some peace and hopefully a little happiness is the goal for all of this. Adjust it and find what works for you and then go with that.
