Valentine's Day! The day could mean much more than love. The law of physical attraction takes me to that of intellectual and mental attractions.
Law of attraction is similar to the Chinese saying, 物以类聚 (Wù yǐ lèi jù), that is, Birds of a feather flock together. It's natural for humans to seek comfort, company, and opinion or bias confirmation among people who share with us either ethnically or culturally or religiously or politically.
I remember seeing a group of black students at one table and white at another when I was at Baylor cafeteria in 1980s. One of my former colleagues told me to only watch Fox News, all else being fake news.
Make no mistake we all need this comfort zone and we all go back to what makes us comfortable. Sounds great, but is there a catch here?
Have been there for too long, have you ever thought of stepping out of your intellectual and ideological comfort zone? Are you aware of the limiting effect when we always seek confirmation and stay in our information cocoon, and the risk of suffering from intellectual stagnation?
This thought on Valentine's Day gives me a thousand reasons to deliberately avoid the law of intellectual attraction and of trapping in my mental cocoon. to keep an open mind for peaceful co-existence among people of diverse backgrounds, and to keep growing intellectually.
Happy Valentine's Day to all!