The times, they are a changing. And, in the process of changing, they can rob you of confidence as well. Not merely as in finding that your nephew knows more about how to deal with the world than you do because the world now prefers to be dealt with by a smartphone rather than in person. The times, they bring about a change in what is respected and what is not and...
You see, there was this time when someone was called a liberal thinker on the basis of how open he was to seeing everyone's point of view. How open he was to accepting those portions of ideologies which seem suitable and rejecting only those portions which do not. To do all that, a liberal thinker could not have an ideology of his own. (AND, yes, it is really possible to have ideas even if you do not have an ideology, strange though it may seem.)
So, there were these metaphors that applied to such a strange being - separating the wheat from the chaff and all that. This mythical being would seek to eliminate the weeds and retain the crop, instead of burning up the entire field after spotting a couple of weeds OR claiming that there were no weeds; would be able to see that millet plants are not necessarily weeds merely because you are used to rice and wheat; can see that someone could grow grass in order to feed livestock, even if grass is a weed in a paddy field.
The problem, you see, is that I was taught that this liberal thinking was the best way to be. There was this chap called Thiruvalluvar who also put his oar into it by saying 'EpporuL yaar yaar vai ketpinum apporuL meipporuL kaanbadhu arivu'. Meaning that you assess the truth of what is said without regard to who is saying it.
So, what is the net result?
Someone says something and I cannot confidently call him an idiot immediately. I sit around thinking about whether he had some modicum of truth in what he said, whether his ideas are valid in his context, whether the context itself has changed or remained the same...
WIMP!
Where is the confidence of seeing that, if the guy is not one of us, he HAS to be wrong? And what is this nonsense about being a liberal thinker? A liberal is one who holds views that oppose a conservative, it is that simple. All this nonsense about seeing whether he has a point...are you a bloody conservative, after all?
You see, I have not been able to move with the times. The definition of liberal thinking has changed but I have not changed in tune with the times. And my sort of liberal thinking...only losers think that way.
No-one can stop a man who knows he is in the right and keeps coming, even if his knowledge of his rightness is totally erroneous. The chap who stops to wonder whether he is indeed right, though...
I am afraid I am never going to appear confident, after all.