sigh
Very rarely, do I see healthy discussions throughout the internet. It’s an ego thing really. When you see a comment that conflicts with your personal world view, your ego gets immediately triggered like ‘NO that’s wrong!’ and goes on the defense. And while discussing your point, the ego disregards the other person’s perspective from a standpoint of ‘you’re ignorant and don’t know what you’re talking about. Here’s what’s really true.’ Even if it comes from a good place, the other person already has their mind made up so there’s no way that someone else telling them they’re wrong is going to convince them otherwise… no matter how logical your point is. Go on social media and see for yourself lol.
This is something I’ve been thinking about for the past few days actually. In America, dealing with the constant ‘right’ vs ‘left’ battle on a daily basis is so ridiculous and tiring. It’s become like sports where it’s my team vs yours and amidst all these discussions being had, it’s just people shouting into echo chambers. No liberal is listening to conservative points and vice versa. There is no discussion. Just arguments as to why I’m right and you’re wrong. And is anyone objectively right or wrong? As I’ve mentioned somewhere in this forum before, I’m a strong believer of the subjectivity of the universe and ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ depends on how you perceive things.
As with Neville Goddard, if someone believes in his teachings and up to this point in their lives, things have all logically worked out according to his teachings… How can someone else tell them that ‘they are wrong?’ That’s like someone telling ‘you’ that what you believe in is wrong even after all that you learned and more importantly, the experiences you’ve had that confirm your beliefs. Nobody has had your experiences nor can you show them to anyone. Experiences are truly what shape the way we think and see the world and no words or data is going to reshape someones thinking like experiences do.
In discussions where there is disagreement, try to not to convince the other person they’re wrong. It’s always going to turn into an argument because convincing is subconsciously forcing your beliefs on someone. The subconscious will resist.
So how do we have healthy discussions then? There is literally only one way. LISTEN. That is all there is to it. Listen to what the other person has to say and attempt to learn about their perspective. Ask questions like “why do you think that way’ or ‘what do you mean by this.’ If you listen and try to learn about someone’s perspective, they are going to be much more open to what you have to say. Try to find similarities from your perspective and theirs and then draw comparisons while at the same time speaking about the way you see things differently. They will be much more open to listen and learn from your perspective as well.
In this way, both people win. It’s a positive interaction and in many cases can expand your thinking. There is something to learn from anything or anyone and why miss the opportunity to learn and rather just get into a dead end argument. In some cases, I’ve seen people change their opinion on something through these kinds of discussions. But never in an argument lol.
Sorry for the speech but I’d really hope for us to have healthy discussions from here on out. If we keep having these kind of arguments, we’ll just drive people with different opinions out of the forum. Do we really want to be like the rest of the internet? Either become an echo chamber where everyone agrees with eachother or a moshpit where everyone argues all the time? Nah. We can do better than that. We are better than that. Anyways, this is me and @El_Capitan_Nemo’s 2 cents on all this.