There are two things about me that people either love about me or that completely pisses them off. One is that I’m honest, almost to a fault. I call it like I see it. I genuinely make an effort to be fair and form an opinion on facts and actual observations; if someone sleeps with 50 people in 90 days, well, a spade is a spade (or in this case a slut is a slut). I truly believe honesty is the best policy in almost all circumstances. The other is that I have an opinion—on just about everything. I grew up differently from some people--ok, perhaps most. In my family, if you didn’t have an opinion, well, you’d better go out, research, read, watch the news, listen to others, and form one. Family has a lot to do with how you view the world, particularly when you are younger. They formulate who you are with actions, reactions and often, for the better (or worse). I don’t feel any worse the wear. I have other friends that became interested in the world at a younger age--that are well read, pay attention to the world around them, and are some of the most fascinating people I know. So I consider myself blessed to be included in such a group. Besides, honest and opinionated, is, well, better than dishonest and no opinion. Perhaps it's the “no opinion” that makes it ok to be dishonest to some. Like the saying goes, “you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”
While some people are ok with a fib, white lie, a flat-out whopper, I just generally can’t reconcile with anything more than a fib. I’d rather hear the truth, even though it will hurt, than listen to a lie, be perfectly content, then find out it was a lie. The hurt that follows the truth never adds up to finding out someone lied and the truth on top of it. There’s a country song that goes “wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”, but the truth is when something hurts us we’d all like to wind the clock back. Period. Facing that someone abused your trust on top of it—well, forget it. I’ve known people that would rather not know. Of course, sometimes the worst lies that we tell are the lies we tell ourselves. They say (and I agree) that you cannot love someone else until you love yourself. But honestly, honesty is one of those things that kind of works in reverse of love. Honesty—well, you can’t be honest with yourself if you can’t be honest with others.
The second thing that either you love about me (or not) is the fact that I have an opinion--on a lot of things, ideas, concepts, politics, tv shows, advice columns... On the rare occasions that I don't have an opinion, I’ll simply say that I don't have an opinion. But, like I stated earlier, we have to stand for something or we'll fall for anything. I stand up for what I believe in. I don't have to like someone to agree with them, and I don't have to dislike someone to disagree with them. We should be open-minded enough to disagree with friends and agree with people that we don't like. I can't stand Sarah Palin--I've listened to her rhetoric, read her self-promoting trash, and evaluated her low level of honesty. She's an attention monger--a drama queen to the umpteenth degree--that happens to have that "girl next door" act down pat. I have a friend that loves her--not because she thinks she's smart enough to be President, but because she finds her amusing. Obviously, we disagree. On the other hand, there's a guy I know that I can't stand who shares my opinion of the attention vampiress. Doesn't mean I want to be his best buddy. This isn't high school, so we can think for ourselves and agree to disagree. I'll criticize another common saying here: Opinions aren't like *ssholes. They're our brains; we all have them and it's better when we use them.
In my family, we debated all kinds of things. Debate is a fine artform that few of us have an appreciation for. Sometimes, like in a real debate, I didn't get to argue for what I believed or agreed with. Sometimes, I had to argue the opposite point of view. That's how a real debate works. We have to learn enough about both sides of an issue to offer a sound argument for and against. I grew up debating issues, some past, some present, some that could occur in the future—what-ifs. A good debator already has a grasp on the argument being made by the opposing side, and therefore, can intelligibly respond with a counter-argument. Yet so many people simply think their "opinion" is the only one that counts and that’s it. That is not opinionated; it is ignorance. And in spite of the saying, ignorance is not bliss. Is a slave in bliss as long as they’ve never tasted freedom? It’s a stupid saying. (Ok, my opinion, take it for what it’s worth.) Debate is about seeing, understanding, contemplating the two sides of an argument, and then coming to a conclusion, recognizing your own opinion on the issue, and understanding not just why you like the side you’ve chosen—but why you don’t like the side you’ve settled against.
When I was younger, my family would debate issues at dinner, on holidays, for hours in the evening instead of turning on, what my grandmother called, the boob tube. We were expected to be able to debate both sides, have a thought on the table, bring something new to the table, contribute to the discussion. It wasn’t about “right” or “wrong”. Opinions aren’t actually about right or wrong. Life is not so easily black and white. It mattered not whether it was sitting around the dinner table, the fireplace toasting marshmallows, over yahtzee or a penny poker game. The debates ranged from the President—Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan—to much more controversial stuff like AIDS. When AIDS broke out in the early 80s, my one aunt became fixated on it. It became regular debate material for the better portion of a decade. I knew more about AIDS by the time I graduated high school than most people will ever know in their lifetime. Of course, most of the family did not take the side of my aunt who thought it would be an epidemic, a cancer, that needed immediate funding to stop the disaster that she saw coming. I avoided this debate like the plague (again, excuse any pun). Of course, honesty got me out of it—when questioned, I simply bowed out by saying since I had no experience whatsoever with how it was passed, I simply couldn’t argue the risk versus the reward. (See honesty in this case paid off big!!!) On the downside though, I knew everything from how it passed from person to person to the actual effectiveness of various forms of protection. Like I’ve already stated, debate in my family was the norm. All of my aunts and uncles would prep--read and study up in between family holidays--to be poised for this particular elephant when my aunt would tow it into the room. Even now when I see or hear something about it, I skim over it, let it settle in my mind, and then decide how I view the newest information that science, religion, philosophy or even sometimes the crackpots, have provided for my consumption as if I’m preparing 3 x 5 mental cards for the great debate over turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie.
So, I come by my opinions by method: Take in as much information as I can, verbal (tv, others, radio, etc.), visual (read, tv, newspapers, magazines, etc.) and then evaluate what I think...and then formulate my opinion. I know the pluses of my opinion (and even the minuses). I'll re-evaluate with new information. Weighing the new information for quality of information, amount of new information, source, and sometimes (shockingly) even change my opinion. If someone doesn't like me because of my honest opinions, well, I have an opinion on that too. My opinion: I know who I am and I'm ok with that. If you're not ok with who you are, well, to adlib a little on another saying, then you'll never be ok with who I am.
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