118. Why are we so stubborn?

The pervasive nature of the internet has unleashed an unprecedented flow of opinions. By virtue of that, opinions flow more freely than ever. And rightfully so. Information flows freely, and our opinions get generated automatically due to the immense strength of the human brain.

However, upon observation, I have come to conclude that the opinions we form today are also stronger than ever.

That being said, what if I were to tell you, that not every opinion we have may be as intelligent as we think?

Let me explain.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

– Henry David Thoreau

As an advanced species, we have the capability to think about things. These thoughts give rise to feelings, which to a considerable degree, govern our responses. Naturally, there are subjects in the world about which we think and feel very strongly. So much so, that at times, they become an inseparable part of our identities.

Subjects like gender, eating preferences & sexual orientations are big debate topics. People have made entire careers out of talking about their preferred topics on the internet for the public to review. And thanks to the strong opinions we form about these subjects, we are ready to battle, at times physically, people who don’t agree with our opinions.

The thing with the internet, however, is that it is nothing but one big repository of opinions. And do you know what is the best way to tear an opinion apart?

Asking questions about why the opinion is correct.

While the internet is filled with opinions, it is also immensely vast for someone to scour its ends for the complete picture. Moreover, in today’s age of diminishing attention spans, nobody wants to exert the effort to put together the entire story.

Additionally, the algorithms on social media are designed to keep us glued to our devices, often by showing us content that confirms our biases & evokes strong reactions.

One thing that usually goes unnoticed is that, thanks to the internet, we are not really asked for explanations for things we say in public today. Even if we are challenged, we have the option to simply turn off comments and block those who disagree, which ultimately strengthens our little echo chambers.

These echo chambers cause us to fall prey to confirmation bias, which leads us to only seeking for arguments which strengthen our opinions. The more evidence we find, we stronger our opinions become, and the more strongly we react to disagreement.

I have seen countless examples in the real world, as well as on the internet, where youngsters protesting don’t even know what the protest is about.

Citizens of legal voting age just state why the standing government or the opposition is not fit to be in power. But the moment they are asked why, the stumble and either decline a response or say something that’s way out of left field.

What’s scary is that these opinions eventually turn into beliefs, and one thing we are extremely bad at is questioning the foundation of them. The older we grow, the stronger these beliefs become, unless we can perpetually drop our ego and adopt a beginner’s mindset.

It is important that we are able to justify our beliefs to ourselves, lest we spend the rest of our lives completely confused and misguided.

We have touched upon a couple of solutions to this problem already: dropping ego & adopting a beginners mindset. What else?

Discourse is probably one of the best human constructs. There is a strong reason that discourse is used even to diffuse extreme situations like world wars. The more you speak to people with an open mind, the more you get to understand a subject, and yourself.