Simon and Garfunkel Knew What was Up
...though technically the lines are:
"People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening"
But that was a little long for a title, m8.
Anywho.
Shut up, hand. Learn to listen.
There was something I mentioned towards the end of my blog post from a couple weeks ago and I wanted to talk about it a little more.
There's a habit that really guts my salmon. More of a behavior, really.
Speechifying the "perfect" argument without any intent of ever trying to come to grips with a rebuttal beyond the most token of ways.
That was wordy. PEOPLE WHO TALK TOO MUCH AND DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT ANYONE ELSE IS SAYING ANNOY MY TITS. I like to keep my tits unfettered, thank you very much.
I hypothesize that I am annoyed by this because a) the people that do this are angry and I tend not to respond well to anger of any sort and b) "my way or the highway" or "black and white" or "us and them" or "with us or against us" rhetoric immediately makes me not like you, no matter how good your cause is.
Ya Gotta Go Deeper than the Internet
While this sort of behavior is clearly the most prevalent (and easiest to perform) online, it is in no way restricted there.
It is super easy to go on an internet forum, start a thread, and post a loooooong rant about how everyone always believes the woman when something bad supposedly happens and that's so unfair and totally factchecked. In fact, you will probably be greeted by more equally dipshitty individuals cuz you've posted that tripe in a likeminded area.
And while that's easy to do, it happens in the real world all the time.
Sorta like this. But louder.
I saw a guy with a megaphone and some signs talking about Jesus and Sin. I could hear his squawk of a voice in my car with the windows up and the music blaring. This guy was clearly not interested in hearing your conflicting point of view - it's far more important that he get his inane ideas about how people should live their lives into as many ears as possible, a sort of verbal molestation.
And of course there's Donald Trump.
Clearly, not all speeches, rehearsed material, written arguments and the like fall in this category of what I'm talking about. Even though these are all still a one-sided affair, often times they can be inclusive rather than exclusive.
It's a particular type of speechifying that irks me, the type that explicitly or implicitly says "This is right, anything else is wrong."
I see it everywhere, even in places that I respect. Articles that leave no room for another's point of view.
I am a Doubter
Sometimes, this feels like a bad world to be a part of for those of us who don't believe in absolutes. I hold a lot of opinions but, aside from this little bloggity experiment, I rarely let them out and when I do, there's not much rigidity in what I say.
It's hard for me to express my opinions sometimes because there's always that naggling doubt in the back of my mind that I could very well be wrong.
My opinion on opinions: You are not them. They are allowed to change when you get better information. There's nothing to be gained from thudding people on the head with the stick of "truth". You may feel better after, yes, but that person's mind probably isn't changed. If it is, it's probably for the worse because you just stoved their head in with a stick you jerk. Perhaps the most emphatic opinion I hold is that one.
I don't understand militant adherence to an opinion/belief/way of life. I tried that for a while and it made me feel like shit.
For fuck's sake, I still get unbelievably tense when people several yards away from me start to raise their voices. I'm too sensitive for this shit.
Basically, what I'm saying is - the world would be a better place if everyone was in a state of constant confusion and doubt like me.