“What do you think?”
My heart always starts to race whenever I’m asked that question. Specifically, this tends to happen whenever I’m in a group environment and someone suddenly becomes aware of the fact that I haven’t contributed to the conversation, usually about some sort of societal or political issue, yet. I'll utter out an “Uhm,” then a “Hm,” and a “Well, I’m not too sure.” Considering my drawn out hesitation, it worries me that people might assume I lack insight, passion, or the ability to think independently. However, in reality, the problem is that I can never form a strong opinion on anything at all, because I see everything from ten different perspectives. As my Abnormal Psychology professor so eloquently put it in class, thinking in black and white is a tragic thought error.
While chatting over coffee the other day, one of my friends made the observation that I like to think in metaphors. This is mostly because I like to find significance in the smallest of actions to make life a little bit more exciting. In this case though, I think two metaphors can help accurately describe my mindset.
1. Thoughts are the rooms we live in.
We are each surrounded by four walls, each of us with our own mind space and living sanctuary. Life happens to us all more or less the same, but the rooms we’re in affect how we each perceive the stimuli that we encounter every day. Some rooms are bigger than others, and I’d like to think that mine is pretty big.
2. We can think of ourselves as watercolors.
We should be fluid and let life simply wash over us. This doesn’t necessarily encourage the idea of passivity, but instead embraces the idea of actively observing and accepting our surroundings more often. Of course after, we can adjust, recenter, and grow.
These two metaphors perfectly explain the internal conflict that arises in me whenever I’m asked to present and defend my own opinions. To tell the truth, I often truly don’t know what to think.
Though there are undoubtedly a number of benefits to being surrounded by such a culturally diverse range of people with their own perspectives, there are also some drawbacks to it. I find that it proves rather difficult to develop and differentiate between your own unique thoughts and those that have been influenced by others. It’s also one of the disadvantages to being a part of this generation: We have so many ideas thrown at us everyday from so many different directions, and it’s hard to not shiver at the thought that you’re expected to have your own. One thing I know for certain is that no individual, idea, factor, or event can be understood in isolation.
I’m hoping that if I keep listening and asking people to elaborate, I can maybe someday gather enough insight to actually form some sort of opinion myself. The majority of my articles have and will probably continue to be rather introspective, because I think you have to know yourself before you can know the world. You’ll also see me taking excessive notes in class, listening to the lyrics in songs more than anything else, or putting down a book I’m reading every five minutes just to write down a particularly beautifully worded phrase that struck me. I want to absorb as much as possible, so that I can learn how to become a strong communicator and express my own thoughts as precisely and effectively as possible.
However, I’ve also been growing quite fond of the idea of eternal indecision. Indecision is an opinion in itself, after all.
