The Death of My Opinion

Bar Harbor. Picture by Author.

Dear Reader,

This is another article written to finally blow through the backlog of writing ideas locked up in my brain. Ironically, this article on the death of my opinion is well, my opinion. But, I beg you to please hear me out, even if this article is an absolute ramble-fest.

My opinion on various areas of life has been constantly worn down over the past few years. What makes it scary for me is that it’s almost like I can’t hold onto an opinion.

Maybe its my incessant belief in my inner generalist, maybe its how anxious feelings take over when someone claims something I’ve done was wrong. I guess in many aspects, I’m just another person who wants to be ‘normal’. But as I’ve learned over the years, ‘normal’ doesnt exist. Everyone wants to be normal but no one is normal, so does that make normality the lack of normal-ness?

The answer to that is I don’t know, in fact the chase of normality is in many ways a form of comfort and reasoning, or even motivation for certain parts of my life, but thats just me.

Part of me realizes that my chase for normality or correctness in any and every community I’m a part of is a futile chase that will only result in a sort of self deprecating state.

Another part of me says that this chase of normality and correctness is simply the best way to learn and protect myself from long winding conversations and arguments. But that doesn’t work does it? I’ll always slip up eventually and feel terrible about myself for not conforming to some correctness.

As an example, maybe I’ll post a picture of something that I’m genuinely quite excited about, perhaps its some tea that I’ve recently acquired thats 30 something years old. Perhaps its a PC part for a computer build, perhaps a 3D printer filament, anything and everything in all my hobbies could fit into here. But then 2 minutes later someone comes in and says something along the lines of:

Hey thats (fake, wrong, inefficient, stupid, overpriced, etc) and you should have (bought, looked at, etc) X instead.

And then I feel absolutely terrible about myself. They might not have meant it, but I feel it. It suddenly feels like all the happiness and interest in this specific thing withered away and now im left with something I can’t enjoy or use, even if I do enjoy it and I do use it. This happens constantly, and I don’t understand my own reaction to it, I’ll tell myself its completely irrational as you went and picked it out and you, yourself have enjoyed it, so why should you listen to someone else? You matter more than them, at least to yourself.

But that doesn’t change the spikes in anxiety, that doesn’t change my emotions toward it. It just tells me I’m being irrational, which at points degrades myself further.

Thats the paradox of my opinions, I can have them but I can’t have them, I’m both right and wrong, and I don’t understand myself.

But then I think to myself, what am I without my opinions? Nothing! Theres nothing to think about, just a monotonous and minute existence every day that sucks away the limited minutes, hours, days, weeks, years we have on this green earth.

I think that side of me consistently wins the battle against the other side, because eventually I’ll just wake up, go for a run, and it’ll feel completely fine once again.

One of the greatest things I’ve been led to is that your opinion is only yours when you believe in them, and thats my issue. Do I or do I not believe in my own opinion and judgement? I don’t know. Part of that stems from certain interactions both in real life and online where someone says the line mentioned above to me, and I have absolutely no clue how to react to them or how to have a productive conversation with them. I simply can’t.

I’m worried ill be too cold, too emotionless or even the complete opposite, too full of emotion, going in too hot, maybe i’ll be presented as angry or irrational. That’s the stuff of my nightmares, the massive unknown of other peoples perception.

I just tell myself, deal with it or just don’t, it’s your own decision to defend your opinion or run away with it. But at the end of the day, it’s healthy to consistently protect my opinions, because its the belief in something that gives you the power to have productive conversations with the other side.

Anyways, thats it for this ramble article. Of course, it’s all my own perception of myself, and thus my opinion. Which I guess you could say is ironic.

Thanks for reading,

The Author