Sometimes you can just be too stubborn. Sometimes you just need to give it up and switch to something different.
Take UFOs for instance—both kinds of UFOs, actually.
First there is the Unidentified Flying Object kind, (well actually the theories about them):
Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
And then there are the UnFinished Objects of the handicraft kind:
I started this particular ufo—unfinished object—five years ago but took it off my loom to do something for a friend.
It languished in a dusty corner until last week when I saw it there, dusted it off and strung it back on the loom. I mean, when you invest in something, be it a pet theory or a craft project, you gotta see it through, right?
It seemed to be going fine for a while; everything was stringing up nicely. It all fit. And then I took it off the loom to really examine it. Suddenly it was not so perfect. In fact, it did not line up at all. (Check out the misshapen straps on the right side.)
What to do? Well when something does not work, be it a theory or a project, you try to fix it. Crack out a bead (or hypothesis) here and crack one out there. Re-string the line of beads—or your reasoning—and try to secure it all. Tie off the string. Then you find that, well, restringing it back together created other problems.
So you patch, patch, patch, only to find another crack, another hole, another line of beads (or reasoning) that needs to be re-strung, re-visited.
Finally it hits you: sometimes you just gotta give it up and go onto something new, be it theory or project.
The theory that UFOs are made of nuts and bolts is cracked and full of holes. The observations just do not fit the theory anymore. Time to give up on the Nuts and Bolts theory and look for something else. For instance, the UFO experience is real to those who report them, so what does that say about human consciousness? And how is the phenomenon interacting with us as a species? I mean: What is the meaning of it, anyway?
Oh, the beading project? Donated to the garden fairies who, I hope, are swinging handily on it.
Now onto something more satisfying.