I envy those confident people who are so very sure their opinions are full and complete and right that they will engage in public arguments with people they don't know, about topics where the sum total of their knowledge has been gleaned from reading forums and blogs.
Me? All I can see are shades of grey, wrinkles in time and the gulf that exists between what I think I know and the idea that there is one single thing called truth.
I wonder about the motivations of those who espouse rumor as if it were gospel truth wrapped up in shiny paper and tied with a silk bow. Do they just want to hear themselves talk? Are they so arrogant as to believe that people with strongly held alternative opinions are going be so swayed by their intellectual prowess that in a flash of light they will see the error of their ways, kneel down and beg forgiveness for doubting?
In a public game of "I am smarter than you" I fold my hand and retreat to private corners to talk with people who have no need to win a fools contest.
1 comment:
So utterly true! You're wiser than me, in that you can back out of these things. One of my big challenges in life is just shutting up and letting people be wrong, even very confidently and obnoxiously wrong, as long as it's in a place where that being wrong doesn't really matter.
(But I've been good and closing you-know-what group IM alot lately, hee hee.)
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