So in the song "One of us" Joan Osborne sings:
The bit about "if seeing meant that you would have to believe" really struck me - the question "Would you want to be exposed to something if you knew that it would change your life?" is extremely complex. (Not knowing what the change might be is probably another area of concern).
The religious reference is irrelevant, as the question is really about how open we are to new things, and how much we would want these new things to change our lives.
It could be that most of us live in life-denial (to a greater or lesser extent) because we don't expose ourselves to things we know that may change us - may make us different people.
Not that I necessarily have a real answer as to whether this is a good or bad thing, after all I'm sure that taking copious quantities of drugs would make me a different person too.
Then again, I could read a truckload of autobiographies and come to the conclusion that I should be out there doing more (or something different) with my life, which would also change me (Possibly for the better, Possibly worse).
What I think we fear is rapid, pronounced, and uncontrolled changes to ourselves, and because of this we have a form of personality inertia - something that resists rapid change, COMBINED with a change early warning system that helps us avoid difficult questions like the one above. I wonder if this is because we fear that the we-now might not like or respect the we-then (after the change of life).
Or maybe it's that the we-then might not like or respect the we-now?
Then again, we can make major changes in ourselves over a period of 10 years, and laugh about what we were in retropect..