Drowning in preconceptions.

Maybe you have heard the story about the two frogs in the meadow who had the misfortune of jumping into a paid of milk left out by a farmer. One frog was an optimist, the other a pessimist. After an hour of struggling, trying to jump out and falling, the pessimistic frog gave up. "It's no use,"

But the optimistic frog struggled all night. By morning, his struggling had churned the cream of the milk into butter, and he found himself sitting on a solid clump. Unexpectedly finding a basis for action, he jumped out and went on his way.

The story celebrates the advantages of an optimistic outlook on the future as well as the virtue of hard work, perseverance, and decisive action even if the final results cannot be foreseen.

Unfortunately, matters don't always work out so well. Facts have a habit of getting in the way of expectations rather than cooperating with them. Perseverance can make matters worse. And an optimistic outlook might merely be the result of misjudging a situation.

To deal with our great world problems, the first requirement of success is to assess our situation realistically. The second is to reject despair no matter what the real situation may be. The third is to be prepared for the unexpected. In short, we must avoid letting preconceptions get in our way.

History is filled with tragedies caused by pursuing apparently rational plans. The dream of communism became a nightmare because human nature was misjudged. Our present hope for global peace and the bloodless resolution of conflict is shattering on the hard rock of ethnic fanaticism. Despite the best efforts of urban planners, violence plagues our cities.

The brain of the optimistic frog couldn't have understood the physical intricacies of making butter or the fact that his thrashing would perform a miracle. But when the unexpected occurred, he did the right thing by jumping to freedom.

We, with our more-complex brains, face more difficulties. We construct belief systems based on an incomplete view of the world, then surround these cherished systems with high walls to guard against the intrusion of new evidence. In a complex world, forming theories to guide and orient oneself is essential to narrow down the overwhelming task of decision making. But we face a problem in the fortifications we erect around those systems. Dogmas are created, elevated to truths, and defended, sometimes to the death, as superior to new insights into reality.

One example of the obstructive force of dogma is religious opposition to birth control, which leads to an ever more desperate situation in many countries. Another example is the underlying dogma of our money-oriented society, which mandates the wasteful accumulation of superfluous possessions. Such dogmas are not only destroying our earth, but they are also preventing movement toward a more sensible, productive era in which justice and humane solutions become possible.

Our future depends on our open-mindedness, critical thinking, and the courage to convert facts--even inconvenient, painful facts--into a solid basis for action. Like the frog in the bucket, we must be not only optimistic, but ready to act on unexpected developments. Such developments, though interfering with our preconceptions, may provide new knowledge of the greatest value--the knowledge that may yet help us to save our species and our planet.

Erika Erdmann and David Stover are the authors of Beyond a World Divided (Shambala, 1991), a study of the ideas of Nobel laureate Roger Sperry.

Erdmann is publisher of the quarterly Humankind Advancing. Her address is R.R. 1, Lockeport, Nova Scotia BOT 1L0, Canada.

Stover is a freelance writer based in Toronto. His address is #303-185 Robinson Street, Oakville, Ontario L6J 7P6, Canada.