Opinions

I've been thinking about how, years ago, I had opinions and posted them everywhere. In particular on the Compuserve Mensa forum (now the Netscape Intelligence forum). But I also had web pages (oddly enough, still available here) which were pretty opinionated. It was easy, whatever I was thinking I spouted off on.

Now it feels different. Here I am with the perfect opportunity to spout off and I don't really. I get lazy and don't want to type, or I'm doing something else and think I'll do it later, or - and this is mostly it - the opinionated moment doesn't last long enough for me to do it justice in writing. So it isn't that I'm out of ideas or topics, it's that I simply don't obsess the way that I used to.

It's similar to the way that people who meet me now don't meet the engineer. Unless I choose to mention it, engineering doesn't even come up. It's like I'm a stranger when I introduce myself. And all of a sudden all of the things that have been mostly hidden from view are front and center... I think about a friend of mine on a recent business trip who made comments about rip-away outfits when he saw me without the shawl I'd been wearing and was shocked by cleavage. Engineering was a rip-away outfit; much more is exposed without it.

I never have cared for political discussions. My opinions on politics are pretty strong, but so are everyone else's and I really don't enjoy that sort of heated debate. Mostly because in my opinion everything wrong with politics today can be attributed to the stupid two-party system which was really never intended and has the effect of severely limiting our options. And something seems not quite right with the electoral votes, too, but I don't have a hypothetical answer. And even if I did, there wouldn't be much I can do about it. What I get is one vote, the rest is pretty much out of my hands.

Religious discussions can be just as difficult, but at least I can somewhat enjoy those. In particular I enjoy putting Bible quotes back into the context they were taken out of. In extra particular I enjoy doing that with certain Bible thumping fundamentalist relatives who seem to have permanently put their heads somewhere dark and warm. But where I used to enjoy the very structured philosophical debate style, I no longer do; it simply seems like so much wasted energy. We all think we're right - actually, the conclusion that I've come to is that we all ARE right. And just try to convince anybody of that.

I know that I have opinions about hypnosis and Reiki and tarot. Pretty strong and fairly well formulated opinions, for that matter. As one would expect from a reformed engineer. It just seems so strange to express them. Not to mention that I've lost a lot of the forcefulness that used to be a trademark when people called me "E!"

I'm currently reading a book of Erickson teaching stories, so maybe next time I'll have an opinion. Or maybe I'll settle for telling you a story.....
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