One cannot maintain open curiosity forever about a given subject. One would risk becoming a kind of stunted animal, mouth-agape, always questioning and never learning. No; one must at some point begin to welcome a precious few beliefs, and to post guards around them. Ideally, one continues scanning the horizon, albeit with reduced enthusiasm, for new information which might supplant said belief.
The paradox: If one is impervious to new information, one never learns. Inversely, if one never forms opinions, one never learns. Perhaps not a paradox, but merely a needle one has the opportunity to thread.
A treasured loophole: Form opinions and to hold them privately, neither defending nor expressing them to other humans. In moderation, this is part and parcel of creative thought; not every opinion ought be expressed. But taken to the extreme, this is masturbation. One can quickly become a kind of intellectual incel, unacquainted with the feeling of real participation in the collective of human decision-making.
Alas, whether or not one *should* strive to remain eternally open regarding a given issue, it is certainly the case that one cannot. Each mind contains a multitude of secret juries, each continuously rendering verdicts and establishing precedent to which the conscious mind is never fully privy.
Anyone who would harmonize mind and environment must learn to walk this minefield with me. Or to give up and sit down. Or to give up and run blissfully. There are, it seems, many valid approaches.
Now about me: In person, I tend not to pull punches. I want others to speak openly with me, and to value truth, and so I tend to treat others that way, unless/until it becomes clear to me that the person in question doesn’t share my goodwill or curiosity.
In public (on social media, in groups of strangers, etc.) I used to be more open than I am now. I’ve ventured out with a hot take here or there, but for the most part I’ve been silent.
I don’t believe that silence is violence per say. I was going to say ‘but it certainly isn’t helpful’, then realized it sometimes is. In truth, I’ve changed my mind so many times about so many things over the past five years that I just haven’t really known what to say (publicly). It’s one thing to recommend something to a friend, or to engage in debate with a close-knit group – quite another to stake a flag in the ground more abstractly – to identify oneself with a movement or a train-of-thought.
I’m rambling. You may think that this post was leading to a reveal about a political campaign I’m supporting, or a cause I’d like you to support. It isn’t. These are the ramblings of a newly middle-aged man who’s had too much time to think.