No, this isn’t the most obvious post in the history of Persephone Magazine (I will take the rank of captain, though, thank you). Bear with me.
Everyone has an opinion, just like assholes. Sadly, even assholes have an opinion. Sometimes it’s just not their own opinion (this also counts for not-assholes).
We live in a day and age in which a huge number of people can share their thoughts. If they don’t end up in the newspaper, the eight o’clock news or the talk show, they can easily build a blog or start a legacy in an online community somewhere. These people don’t have an opinion about one thing, but about everything, and will call you names/pity you/ignore you if you can’t counter them with anything more than a “Yes, I think so?”
My issues with these kind of people is that it’s usually not their own opinion they’re aggressively blurting out. They watched the talk shows, the news and regularly visited the online communities. They took in loads of opinions, had them rub off on their own, similar ideas. How do I know? Because when you ask why someone has this opinion, you get “Because I agree with person X.” No arguments, no anecdotes or passion about the subject.
Of course we don’t have to create an entirely personal opinion about everything. I say, “Like my mum” or, “I read X and really agree” – it’s the thing you fall back on. How could you function if you had to have a huge lists of arguments and motivations on anything for whenever you’re asked for an opinion? No, if someone else shares your opinion or manages to put it better in words than you do, it’s less of a hassle, hooray. We’re not alone in this opinion, hooray!
So if you’re really interested in something, dig deeper. Collect other, fitting opinions for support, not as a mouth piece. Else you might run the risk of an ex-colleague of mine. We were talking about a politician. He agreed with the man on one point, but when I asked him about another point he answered, “It’s like he reads my mind, I love everything he stands for!” while it was quite an extreme point clashing with his morals. It was like his mind has clicked from “I agree on one thing so I agree on all things.” The crickets where very loud when the penny dropped and he said he doesn’t support the man on THAT.
This might have turned more into a warning about gathering sources and how you form an opinion, but I just want to underline there’s a very little possibility that you’ll find your opinion, 100% exact, written up by someone else. There’s a lot in this world that you can easily copy and paste (unicorn gifs, for example), but an opinion isn’t one of them. Use your brain to form one, it will be fun!
