You know the biggest problem with the world is the fact that people do not always agree with each other. It's such an irritating thing to be find someone giving you the horse's laugh just as you are getting into your stride, pontificating about something which you are sure that nobody can disagree with. Of course, you tend to avoid that chap, walking the high road if he takes the low road, finding something important to do on the other side of the room if you spot him, and so on.
But there has always been a niggling sensation in me. This, I must admit, has been my bane all my life. I mean, what sort of idiot wants to know WHY the other person differs from you? To see if, perhaps, you are missing out something in coming to your conclusion or not seeing the impact of your conclusions on other people? If you want to succeed, you just forge ahead, KNOWING you are right and anyone who does not agree is either a fool or a knave or both. After all, people follow a person who is confident about his actions. Someone who dithers and says, 'Maybe the other guy has a point. But, still, all said and done...', well, he seems just like me, unsure and indecisive, so what's the point following him? Might as well follow myself.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, that niggling sensation. This wanting to know how the world looks to the other guy. (You know how it is. The view, wherever you are, gets monotonous over a period. The active guys TRAVEL to get to see a different view. Being a lazy bum, I try to find a different WAY of looking at the same thing.) It's all very well to think of it, to think that you need to also stay around people with different points of view just to widen your horizons, but the reality of it is VERY uncomfortable. I mean, it's very nice in your day-dreams where this other chap will say, "You have a valid point. But, from my pov..." and politely explain his differences. Out here in the real world, what's likely to happen is that he'll say, "Well, what can I expect from an idiot like you", and descend to further depths of vituperation. Not for me, thank you.
When Social media came around, I was thrilled. Now HERE I could listen to differing voices, differing opinions, without the problem of getting castigated for my own views. Especially, if I did not put up my own views as posts. That would invite a lot of people to come to tell me how much more intelligent they were as compared to me, and why their views were the only right views for people who even had only two brain cells to rub together. (Yeah, yeah, I know you think that I have a lone brain cell sentenced to solitary confinement in my skull, going slowly insane. Who asked you for your opinion, anyway? When I said 'differing opinions' I did not mean YOU.)
It started out very well. I got some differing opinions which made me feel that, perhaps,...well, not that I was exactly wrong, of course not, but that there may be some need to reassess my own thinking. And times when I had maybe not taken into account everything while I came to my conclusions. And, all that without anyone calling me a nut for not having thought of all that. It helped, of course, that I was careful not to leave any comment or any trace of the fact that I had even READ those opinions. Quite naturally, one can only 'Like' those opinions which jibe with one's own.
Over a period I found that I was right ALL the time. ALL the opinions and views which appeared to me were opinions almost exactly in line with my own. The world was coming to recognize that my way of thinking was the only right way, after all! So much for all those 'friends' of my real life who thought of me as someone who was mistakenly born human.
Till the day I read the comments on the views. To my surprise, I found that there were still people who disagreed with the only right way to think, though they were not foolish enough to put it up themselves as posts. They restricted themselves to making fun of others. THAT shows what sort of people they are...the sort who only pull down others.
I said as much to a friend and...oh, well, I should not have done it in real life. Back I was to hearing about how the lone brain cell in my skull was rattling around, about how I would breeze through to the Guinness Book of World Records for the lowest IQ in all history and the rest of that rot. At the end of which he says that the algorithms of social media ensure that they show me only those things which I have displayed interest in...which means that all I see is echoes of myself.
Ye Gods! So much for Social media widening my horizons with all the disparity of opinions of the human race. Is it going to end up in only totally sound-proofing my comfort zone - my echo chamber if you will?
Marching to the same beat can get monotonous as well, even if you find that you have a lot of company in doing so.
