Carol Northcut | Wednesday, 3 August 2022
In the furtherance of the sport of fly casting, can we agree to disagree?
A prime example of stalemate and polarization is the U.S. Congress. Extremists on the far reaches of both parties fail to admit the faults of their own ideals and fail to recognize the potential benefits of the other’s. The result? Nothing gets done.
But it’s not just politics; it’s also science. Think of the researcher who’s spent his/her entire career sussing out a theory. They defend it vigorously because they can’t bear the thought that it was a dead end. And then there are the religious cults. Some of us are old enough to remember Jonestown. I knew a guy that was part of it. He’d come back to the States from Jonestown to take care of some matters and, while there, his wife and child died in the mass suicide. If only they could’ve seen Jim Jones for what he was, for what the cult was. But they were invested and blinded. So, it seems to me that it’s a case of investment and ego too. When one has invested so much energy and time into something, it’s hard to see that it might actually befor naught, if not totally, at least partially.
In any event, we, as humans, hate to be wrong; we hate to think that we’ve wasted our investments of time and energy. We hate it so much, we sometimes double down on our investment. But as long as we cling to our beliefs without entertaining the idea that we might be wrong, we’re stuck. When it comes to fly casting theories, if we can check out egos at the door and say, “You know, there may be something to that other theory,” that is when the science of fly casting is furthered. Now, admittedly itis pretty easy for me to stand back and write this because I’m not invested in researcing the theories, nor do I have the full complement of skills and knowledge to research them. But it does give me the perspective of standing back and watching the oars in the racing shell fly about in chaos. Can we agree to disagree so that we can accomplish something? Can we entertain the idea that “Gee, I might be a bit wrong on this and they might be a bit right?” or “I’m a little right and they’re a little right?” Recently my mentor, after many years of adhering to a particular theory regarding one cause of tailing loops, changed his mind based on the findings and demonstrations of Mac and Mac (Brown and Macauley). I like that: Testing theories, questioning theories, and being open to being open. I think many on the SL Board forum try to do that, and I appreciate that mindset. For those who do not, please try to check your egos at the login.