A word to the wise

FAIR USE NOTICE: Copyright protects the particular way authors have expressed themselves. It does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in a work. ~ U.S. Copyright Office

This blog may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of issues of humanitarian significance. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to anyone who has an interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

CONTENT DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in the media, articles or comments on this blog are those of the speakers or authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions held by the administrator. As the limited administrator of this blog, I oversee it based on personal unwritten policy but I should not be held accountable for all of the information you may find here. Furthermore, I cannot warrant the precision, accuracy, timeliness or completeness of all of the information contained herein.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Am I Always Right?

My daughter once accused me, when she was just entering those teen years. "You think you're always right!", she said in a huff as she was storming off to her room. Naturally, I followed her and explained the difference between always thinking you're right and thinking you're always right. The former is just what people do. It's a subtle distinction, but people proceed as if they're right, always. Some of us proceed more confidently with that assumption than others, but it's a perfectly natural thing to do. And, with that same underlying assumption, we opine. It's normal. I can't even imagine what it would be like trying to navigate life with a predominant assumption of being wrong.

Thinking you're always right is a different matter. It implies a deluded sense of infallibility. I've met people with that personality disorder, but they are nearly always emotionally invested in their correctness. Their very identity is wrapped up in it. It affects them greatly to discover they were patently wrong about something. For some reason, unfathomable to me, it embarrasses them to be wrong. These are the people that will make shit up and state it as known fact rather than simply prefacing it with a caveat that they are merely speculating. You will never hear these sorts of people say, "I don't know". I don't have that problem. In the realm of possible knowledge, I don't know most of what is knowable and neither do you. Further, I think there is a plethora of information that simply isn't knowable by anyone confined by this shared corporeal/temporal existence.

I doesn't bother me in the slightest to be wrong or to confess my ignorance. The sooner I can find out I'm wrong about something the better. Then I can make the proper adjustments and proceed as if I'm right again. If I'm wrong about something, show me how and why. Change my mind. It won't hurt my feelings. I have no intrinsic feelings about my rightness. If I clearly don't have all the facts and you do, give them to me. I'll adjust.

I'm smart enough to realize just how little I know in the grand scheme of things. Are you?
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)