In writing, I question my ideas to test their substance. It forces me to explore different perspectives. And I always find a way to disagree with myself and get stuck in the middle of two or more opposing views.
I run a bulldozer through what seemed like a simple idea. Suddenly, it’s eleven ideas muddied together in a big bowl of mess. Then the real work begins. I shovel through them to dig up the truth. To me, the process of writing is 90% debating myself and 10% typing.
I often end up in a real pickle because anything can be false from a different point of view. As a result, I tend to go back to old articles to rewrite them again and again, depending on how I slept today. It’s hard to finish stuff this way.
So I looked for an antidote to being stuck in trenches with myself, and I found one. I realized that if I write only what no one might say is false, I couldn’t publish anything. In the end, everything is an opinion. And that’s okay.
Strong opinions are useful whether people agree with them or not. They help us to break assumptions and reveal new points of view. We learn about who we are from contrasts–seeing what we are or aren’t, like or dislike. We understand the world in opposites.
This insight enables my overly critical self to speak freely. I found peace in writing from one point of view today and a different one tomorrow. I aim for one truth among many. No opinion represents absolute truth, but some are useful. I settle for finding the useful.
Update from 23/09/2023
It’s 3 years since I wrote this article. And I’m super glad I found the courage to start writing. I can easily find angles to disagree with lot’s of things I wrote years back, but the process of writing itself is too useful not to write anything.