Do ya remember when being called "narrow-minded" was the worst thing anyone could accuse you of?

Seems THESE days, it's the norm.

Small minded people, those who cannot think critically for themselves, tend toward naivete and gullibility. They have little or no capacity for circumspection (seeing the Big Picture).

They tacitly believe what you tell em, if what you tell em sounds plausible, without doing any real investigative research to determine whether or not it's true. I imagine we've all done this to some extent, and it's not too far outside the realm of human nature~ but it's especially true of people who are emotionally underdeveloped.

Developmental arrest applies to people who've learned to flee painful or uncomfortable emotions and sensations in their body in favor of living in their HEAD. They tend to analyze the shit out of every feeling and life experience they have. If you ask em what they're aware of feeling, they'll tell ya what they're thinking. Anytime someone starts a sentence out with "I feel that..." they're about to tell you what's in their Head, NOT what they're experiencing in their Body.

Dissociation from emotions renders one susceptible to having personality disorder features. No regard for another’s boundaries, feelings or needs due to being disconnected from one’s own, leaves an individual with narcissistic and/or borderline personality disorder traits. Along with a lack of empathy inherent within these folks, is a lack of impulse control and boundaries. While we might naturally expect these deficits to occur in a young child, we presume by the time someone reaches adulthood, they’ve developed beyond ‘em. Narcissists and Borderlines have not.

These folks tend to be perfectionistic and overly analytical. They jump to conclusions before weighing all the facts of an event or situation. Because they spend far too much time in their head and haven't learned to trust their extra-sensory aspects (instinct and intuition), they frequently second-guess their choices~ sometimes, to a tormenting extent. They make bad relationship choices, and tend to be very hard on themselves. They have poor self-worth, and can't understand what others see in em... and this is just the tip of their iceberg.

They generally feel safer within a rigid, highly organized format that tells em what to think, how to behave and what to believe. Many are hyper-religious, others are Buddhists, some are yoga fanatics. This rigid format functions like a sort of container for 'em. It helps em feel safer, because it takes the guesswork out of having to navigate life on their own, and risk making grievous or fatal mistakes. They're essentially children in adult bodies, who have a very hard time thinking independently and making up their own mind as to how they feel about an institution or entity, apart from the influence of others in their immediate circle.

You can convince a child of literally anything, because they don't have the advantage of life experience and adult reasoning as yet, so they believe what ya tell em... after all, their parental units were older and wiser 'gods' to em, so what They said must surely have had validity.

Show me a kid who hasn't bought into the myth of Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, and I show you a kid who grew up exclusively among wolves in the forest.

Underdeveloped, core-damaged children grow up to be underdeveloped, core-damaged adults~ unless there's been some highly skilled professional intervention along the way, to help em emotionally grow and EVOLVE into their chronological age.

Just as you would never expect a 3 year old to have the emotional and psychological/sociological capacity of a 43 year old within a few month's time, we cannot expect this prodigious growth to occur inside someone who's at last learning how to FEEL a litany of emotions they had to kill off and bury in early childhood, just to survive in their home environment.

Sheep mentality is the outcome of developmental arrest, and is the norm in most societies. Since we were pre-adolescents we've wanted to fit in with The Herd, because acceptance is so very vital to us at that age in helping us form our sense of identity, separate from our parents. I'm afraid many haven't outgrown this sociological need, so if our peers believe in certain "truths," particularly if mass media invents and/or sanctions em, we do too.

We feel a comforting sense of unity and 'belonging,' if we go along to get along, while we vehemently champion the same causes and wave the same banners as those of our comrades. It's human nature, folks. This ain't ever gonna change.

But what about those of us who don't fit in with sheep, and have no desire to? What is it that sets us apart from the flock, and makes us so very different? Why is it we feel no need to think like the majority of our friends, and hold the same attitudes? Are we the crazy ones... or is it just that we've grown to think for ourselves perhaps a bit more deeply, than the average bear? Maybe from the vantage point where WE are standing, we have a different, more elevated view of the horizon than the masses who are gathered nearby.

I'm not invested like most, in political positioning or fanaticism. I frankly don't give a fuck who lives in the White House, as long as they're not stealing from My pockets to line theirs and further their own agendas. I want my leader to have huge testicles, so that if there's any threat to my freedom or safety, they won't hesitate to do WHATEVER'S necessary to mitigate it (kinda like the sort of protection we needed to be able to rely on from our folks when we were little~ but seldom got).

For most of us logical, rational, practical folks, this eliminates Joseph Biden right off the bat. It’s not his fault. Leftists needed a dolt~ a malleable, dimwit puppet they could manipulate, who lacks the character and integrity of someone who’s cognizant and conscious enough to give a damn about his country’s citizens and their well-being. (Tell us how ya REALLY feel, Schreiber…)

I laugh when someone says, you "seem so intelligent ~ how can you possibly support Trump?!" The truth is, not ONE of my social media posts has conveyed that I do... but the inference among people who read my blurbs and are apparently only able to partially ingest them, is to assume I'm a staunch supporter of the guy who sports a comb-over, is a diamond in the rough (to put it mildly) and (sorry to say) isn't the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer~ but boy does this guy have BALLS! A lesser man would have crumbled under the weight of what they’ve thrown at him, both while in office, and ever since! Trump’s got his own murky history (particularly in business dealings), and I suppose it’s easy to see why so many detest him for it… but I’ll vote for him in a heartbeat, over ANYONE on the seditious, libelous, larcenous left.

These attackers of me and my views rear up on their haunches, as if I routinely go around drowning kittens and slaughtering dogs to sell for human consumption. And yet, it's pretty plain to me that they're not actually taking-in what I'm stating in a broader sense. Frankly, they can't seem to appreciate the Big Picture concepts I'm putting forth, in hopes they'll start thinking more rationally and critically. Beyond this, I don't expect to single-handedly change the world. THAT arrogant, I'm not.

People wanna vilify me for not joining the flock, because anyone who sees this world thru a different lens than they, is perceived to be a threat to their foundational beliefs. If they allow themselves to even consider stepping outside their comfort zone to weigh the merits of a different point of view, it would feel too destabilizing. Thus, they stick with what they've heard, what they've been coached to believe, what they've presumed and what they've needed to accept as true, about pretty much everything. Hollywood is notorious for this~ but we all know how incredibly unstable most of ‘em are, so try not to take anything those make-believe folks say seriously.

The funny thing is, until a child who's been encouraged to believe in Santa Clause reaches a certain age of maturity, that belief is reinforced every single year in the month of December, and it isn't gonna budge. Until that child outgrows their need for a mythological character who magically shows up and leaves ‘em presents under a tree (IF they've been a good little boy or girl) a benevolent “Santa” remains a pleasurable fantasy they wanna pass onto their own children one day. Sorta like the “Green New Deal” that’s crippled our economy, and been a horrific waste of resources.

A very young child and a small-minded person have specific things in common. Both are gullible and quite easily influenced, which a few of us have come to think of as, dangerously, diabolically naive.