Limiting Minds and Paradigms

I talked to a landowner the other day about using livestock to improve soils.

He thought wildlife, and only wildlife, could do a better job. He said frankly, he wasn’t interested enough to learn more.

My jaw dropped.

I had no idea the abyss between owning land and managing range could be so deep and wide.

How could a landowner not care about soil microbes that feed plants that feed animals that feed the world?

I could forgive him for his ignorance, for believing the myth that wildlife would naturally behave in a way that balances soil requirements.

I could not forgive him for owning land, yet not caring about how to improve it.

I could not forgive him for not caring enough to challenge his paradigms.

“Mr. Landowner” demonstrated his limited mindset.

A limited mindset is the biggest obstacle to progress that any of us faces.

It’s also the hardest sinking ship to abandon.

We attempt to solve problems with the same tools we have always used instead of standing back, observing and asking “Why?”

Then asking “Why?” again.

I needed to walk out to the east pasture to catch my horse the other day.

On my way out, I looked at the grass, just as I always do. I saw some species that I like more, some that I like less, but generally a satisfaction grade of B.

I didn’t ask why.

As I led my horse back to the barn, I noticed more of the better grasses were growing in clumps on little hills.

Why?

The clumps were old badger mounds.

Why would western wheatgrass grow taller and thicker on old badger mounds?

Maybe because the soil was fluffed and loosened by the ferocious digging?

Maybe I have a bit of a compaction problem throughout the rest of the pasture?

I don’t know, but I want to find out.

People always tell me to shoot every badger I see; a horse will break his leg by falling into a badger hole.

I shot the badger that invaded my barn before it killed all of the chickens, but generally I leave them alone.

I say get a horse that looks where he steps. It will save you from a far worse fate than a badger hole.

We see limited mindsets in schools, too.

Instead of examining the research that says a completely different teaching strategy yields far higher test scores and competent members of the work force and college communities, schools across Montana maintain the same old sorry paradigms that put the U.S. toward the bottom of the barrel in global academic proficiency.

Instead of measuring whether a child understands a concept, schools measure how much time that child sat in class.

Even after the Montana legislature allowed testing proficiency instead of seat time, schools still fall back on the old paradigm. They don’t ask why they are failing.

This limited mindset is cowardly and pathetic. It harms innocent kids.

Limited mindsets who don’t challenge paradigms reach beyond even our precious land and the future of our kids.

They harm humanity, too.

I recently read an article about our nation’s new Space Force.

I don’t know much about Space Force, but the author, Steven Kwast, is a retired Air Force Lieutenant General.

I bet he knows what he is talking about.

He makes the same argument against a limited mindset and paralyzing paradigms.

Kwast argues that while the U.S. is building fantastic 20th century weapons designed for defense on earth, China is developing weapons for a completely new military strategy in space.

While China works on solar power stations in space that will beam clean energy to any place on earth and have the potential to wipe out any electric grid on earth, rendering our military helpless, we are building amazing airplanes and more coal-fired generation plants.

China is challenging paradigms while we bask in them, Kwast says.

Every aspect of life, from land management to education to space, benefits from challenging paradigms by asking why.

Every aspect of life loses when nobody cares enough to ask.