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There's a quote that says:
"Don't promise when you're happy. Don't reply when you're angry and don't decide when you're sad."
It's so easy now to respond to anything immediately. Anonymous keyboard warriors everywhere; a bit like 'road rage' but with less personal consequence.
The older I've gotten the more I've realised 'right' and 'wrong' are all subjective, anything that comes out of someone's mouth is an opinion from thier point of view. Someone's point of view is dependent on their personal history of experience. It's a wonder humans get along as well as they do.
An anology I like to think about is a star consellation. We all know what the 'plough' or 'big dipper' looks like right? Well, we don't really, we only know if from our position in space. From another star system, another perspective it would look totally different and as you got closer it would look like nothing at all because ultimately 'it' doesn't even exist. Most things are like this, we perceive something but it's an illusion of an object which is just a combination of lots of other individual parts which themselves are too a combination of smaller parts ad-infinitum.
So what are we really fighting about?
Perhaps it's just good ol' competition and a distorted version of survival of the fittest?
Ever since the first life forms evolved out of the primordeal soup all species have been competitive. Most human lives have become abstracted from true competition for food and survival and yet that survival instinct is still there doing it's thing deep inside us. We convert it into more supposedly 'civilised' channels like sporting events or games or just arguments. I think we have a long way to go before we realise 'winning' is no longer necessary for the most part.
I would say always leave some space and time to consider your answer before arguing your point of view. First put yourself in you opponent's shoes and ask yourself how they got to where they are. Just because someone says something confidently or angrily doesn't mean it's right, but it also doesn't mean you need to get angry and call them out over it. Most times it's not worth it.
Think how hard people find it to change themselves - what chance have they got changing someone else?
But, hey, that's just all an opinion.
it's a valuable opinion, and thanks for sharing it with many details and references. I totally agree on what you wrote, especially on the fact that most of the time it's not worth it.
The current environment the majority of us live by make it even harder to use our brain in a peacefully and constructive way. The belief system that has been indoctrinated to us teach values that go against morals and ethics that nowadays have been covered with dust into oblivion.
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