Listen. This isn’t hard to
grasp, I swear. No prerequisites to complete before it will make sense. It is,
without a doubt, the easiest concept to get your mind around that I can think
of.
Every opinion you have is
something you keep because you think it’s correct. The level of certainty
varies, of course, but it’s still a truth: You think you’re right.
Still with me so far? Good. Now
for the second part: Everyone else feels the same way. This, for some reason,
seems to surprise people. It’s as if they expect the rest of the world to wilt
before their obvious brilliance every time they express themselves. It doesn’t
work that way, at least not most of the time.
This is why comments like, “But
you know you’re wrong!” are completely inane. Of course I don’t
know my beliefs are wrong, or I’d believe something else.
For the love of God, if you
believe something, don’t surrender that belief to the first person with strong
opinions of their own. We have a tendency to assign a kind of reverence with
true faith in something—in anything. Look, just because a guy believes in
something doesn’t make him a worthwhile person. If he believes something and
has good reason to do so, that’s
something. But don’t regard who argues his position through sheer volume as
some sort of mystic. There’s a much better term for that person—an asshole.
He might be right, but right or wrong, he’s still an asshole.
So what does all this mean?
Simply this—listen to the polite person and the asshole alike, but don’t
give in based on strength of belief. If you’re going to surrender your
beliefs, do so because you’ve found that are better, truer for you.
1 July 2001