The death of a follower

I am not overly controversial in my posts, it is not that I necessarily avoid controversy, it is that I am looking to help people develop themselves so only venture that way if I see a benefit to that end.

Some people only trade in controversy and as interesting as it is case by case, I don't want to live there. The reason is that a lot of what people see as controversial topics are actually not very interesting or involve a lot of gossip and rumour rather than fact.

Also, the way many approach controversy does not interest me as to make it controversial, they generally make substantial claims that are unsubstantiated. It reduces any argument down to ridiculousness when all that is spoken is hearsay.

Provable facts aren't very controversial at all.

But, the times I do enter into territory where people may believe strongly for or against a position, I notice that I lose a follower or two and am interested in this.

Perhaps, my views on a topic are not the same as theirs, perhaps they are but I approached it poorly. Maybe they mostly agree, but found one point off putting or maybe they just realised they followed me accidentally and are correcting the mistake.

Whatever it is, I find it interesting.

We all love to get support for our ideas and thinking, we love to have people agree with us and repeat our words and it is very easy to get this desire fed. These days, we are not limited to the information provided us, we are active agents in the search and we tend to search for what is agreeable, pleasant and does not challenge our personal view of the world.

With search bars, filters, likes and follows it is easy to fill our feeds with the information with which we feel comfortable. This is called an echo chamber that reverberates our thoughts and delivers them back to us with slight variations that cement them into our mind even more firmly.

There are risks when we act in this manner for if what we surround ourselves with is either not beneficial or even harmful to us, we are absorbing more and more of it. Like radiation.

But, we do not realise that this is happening as bit by bit, the things we do not like are filtered out and all we are left with is a group of people that think in a similar way to us and reinforce that our way of thinking is correct.

It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, silo yourself into a narrow information source and in time, actions will lose touch with the outside information and when the two meet, there is emotional and cognitive conflict. It is kind of like emerging from a bomb shelter after two decades to find the world vastly different from the expectations built within.

It makes what is different a threat, something to be feared and retreat back into the safety of the silo may be the preferred move where what is'right' is known and those that reside there confirm it. Confirmation bias as the case may be.

In some Universities I have heard of shouting down, protests and riots to stop certain speakers from speaking. Often, the same people that will look for freedom of speech are involved in stopping the freedoms of another. Hypocrisy to say the least.

Why not listen, why not widen views and open the ears? Are we so uncertain of our beliefs that hearing contradictory ideas will weaken our resolve? If so, we should investigate them deeper before becoming righteous.

Narrowing the perspective to what is enjoyable generally means staying in psychological safety as what is enjoyable is often made so through repetition and habit. But doing so will limit the chances of discovering other enjoyable activities too.

Life is full of colour and opportunity. Some of it may not mesh well with our views, but building walls between what we know and all else will limit our ability to fulfill our life's potential. It will also limit our chances to interact with some brilliant thinkers, some beautiful minds and passionate hearts.

Like playing an instrument, the first steps can be uncomfortable and awkward, but for mastery it takes time, patience and hard work. It takes practice and many points of investigation and failure. It is then, when knowledge and skill are deep that real change can happen.

It is then that many others with their various instruments can come together and play a symphony that can move the audience to tears, or raise their souls.

If everyone in the orchestra is playing the drums, the beat might have reach, the rhythm be felt afar and many may march in unison, but it is not what we were made to do. Our nature has not been created to reduce ourselves to be like everyone or anyone else.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]