My opinions; the opinions of others; the opinions of strangers, pundits, or journalists are absolutely worthless.
Originally, this was going to be something about whether an opinion untethered from the truth isn’t it just a lie? I was ready to do battle against the unrighteous, the wrong, the unbelievers.
It was all laid out nicely to delve into the subject that a lot of my conversations with friends have lead up to. To take apart the apparatus that has been built to enlarge the lies and diminish the truth. It was going to go on and on about how these opinions, untethered from the truth, were just lies. And maybe that’s true, but along the way something else happened.
What happened was I suddenly did not care about them. My opinions, the opinions of others. My opinions; the opinions of others; the opinions of strangers, pundits, or journalists are absolutely worthless.
First, let’s look at my own. Since being a young man, I am sure that I was described as “opinionated” or more likely “very opinionated”. I spent my early teenage years debating with Bible teachers, until most would give up and turn the period into a quick catch-up nap and a low but passing grade that I was far prouder of than any excelling in the realm of make-believe.So, with that “very opinionated” stature, I was a headache for them at best, and at worst, I was holding the rest of the class down from the arm’s lengths of angels.
Was I right? Probably. Did it matter or make any difference in my life or theirs? No. They could argue, as some did later, that it made them stronger in their own convictions, but it didn’t change anything in them or myself. I do not remember the points they brought up and I’m sure they considered anything I said as a crisis of faith and not a logical conclusion to rejecting outright an ancient book filled with death and hatred.
But my opinions have not always been righteous or faithful to the cause of logic. In contrast, even as a young man who opined against a tyrant god, I was still wrong about a lot of things that would take years to grow out of. Without blaming anyone but myself, it was more than likely that my own opinions clung to me like mud on your shoes that you never took the time to wash off because they were proof that your feet had been places.
Later, I came around to more progressive beliefs rooted in the realism of a world ever-changing. Even then though, what were my opinions and what are they good for?I don’t remember being a child and clinging to them, and I do believe that there are a few things undeveloped as a child that are not worth bringing, even somewhat, into adulthood. I am quite sure now that they did hold me back. The opinions, I had thought, were what shaped me and what people saw of me. That wasn’t true. It was my actions and how I treated people which is what people thought of me.
Second, other people’s opinions. Almost a month has passed since I shunned all social media, reading of the news, or keeping up with whatever today’s meme was. I have never felt better. The overarching thing that I’m coming to is also that other people’s opinions of those things are as useless as my own. Sure, I could use them to navigate through life and best avoid the fascists and misogynists, but that isn’t likely to get me far. The world is till very much built around these horrific ideals and there is a good chunk of people who believe these things that I will need to be civil with. That leaves me with two options. Hate them in silence and let that hate brew to a seething boil. Or I disregard these beliefs altogether and just treat them as I want to be treated.
If I would’ve considered the latter a month or so ago, I would have seen it as abandoning a good fight and accepting the vile of the world by giving them the time of day when they asked me. There are also among my friends and family a number of people whose vileness is too bile-ridden to overlook and who I’m fine never seeing or talking to again, but as for the everyday people that I come across in life, I’m finished giving them the power to decide how I will react to them.
I am going to treat everyone with respect, and I am going to listen if there is something to be said. I will also do well to bide my own thoughts. Why? Because these skirmishes hold no chance of changing anything. Now my focus must be to navigate through life to get to a place in which I can financially afford to help the disenfranchised people who actually need help. Instead of proclaiming in social media posts my solidarity with a cause or people, I am going to silently support them in meaningful ways. Why? It is not to risk alienating anyone. And I do not subscribe to the idea that there are “two sides” and one must be coddled while the other thrashed. No, we are much more complicated beings than all that.
There is also the issue that the inherent value of these opinions, mine as well as others, is so inflated beyond reality that it is comical when you stop and consider things. There are experts who write books, give talks, and offer academic takes on all of these things. What do I care what a real estate agent thinks we should do about the Middle East? Or let’s go one step further and ask why we should care about what celebrities think of a subject outside of their expertise. Maybe they have taken time to study the cause and have a grasp on it for forming their own opinion, and good for them if so, but as for me I need not look to them for that same information.
The inherent lack of value in our opinions on things we are so far removed from is reason enough to disregard them. What a talking head or radio show pundit has to parrot need not monopolize political theory. Society can exist without armchair generals or psychologists. Like our opinions, things like our time is also blown way out of proportion. People who huff-and-puff while waiting in line at a store are a great example of this. Their time is so important that they can’t be bothered to wait until their turn to check out. Later those same people will sit in front of a TV and binge a show for four hours. They look at their time as their own and maybe that is a symptom of western individualism, but it is still completely absurd to think that they can’t wait a few minutes.
We have such a high opinion of ourselves that we think the world should stop for us. A billion main characters who can’t take a minute to look up from their phone and see life as it is: beautiful and amazing.
