I’ve always loved science, ever since I was a kid.

I used to beg my mom to buy me these “kits” from Radio Shack where you could wire a whole bunch of simple circuits together.

Once I ran my regular room light through the circuit to turn my room into a strobe light discotheque.

Of course, my dad thought I was going to burn the house down.

They say that science can seem like magic if it’s sufficiently advanced. But to a kid it’s just a cool trick.

Like pouring vinegar into baking soda, and watching it foam up all over the place. Nowadays you can do that with Mentos and Diet Coke.

When I was in college me and some buddies would find some pool acid (from the dormitory pool supply room) and mix it with some aluminum foil in a big 2 liter plastic bottle.

The aluminum foil would mix with the acid, cause heat and gas, melting the plastic and expanding the bottle until BOOM!

Since we were young and dumb, we didn’t realize how dangerous that was.

One of the coolest discoveries I made (or rather was taught) was about polarized lenses.

When light comes from the sun, it’s bouncing in all different directions. The part of the light that is parallel to the ground, or any level surface can bounce off, and cause glare.

So polarized sunglasses take out the horizontal element of light, so you don’t get any glare.

The cool part is when you take to lenses that are polarized, and rotate them against one another.

Once you’ve got them at 90 degree angles, they’ll cut off ALL light.

You can see it getting darker and darker as you rotate them.

By simply changing some simple filters, you can’t see all the stuff that light allows us to see.

Of course, our brains come the same way.

Now, sun glasses are specifically made that way for a specific purpose.

But the filters in our brains, that keep us from seeing what’s right in front of us, were likely put there, but others, or ourselves, without us really knowing what was going on.

Most of us pick up quite a few filters by the time we’re seven or eight years old, and unless you consciously change them, you’re pretty much stuck with them.

Of course, if your filters are helpful, and help you to see things that enrich and empower you, that’s great.

On the other hand, if your filters are keeping you from seeing the truth about yourself and your rightful place in the world, unless you take the time to change them, things will stay the same.

Luckily, changing them is pretty easy. First you’ve got to find them, them simply replace them with more helpful ones.

If you’re interested in learning how, check this out:

Belief Change