Slingshots Slingshots Slingshots

One of the reasons I like to try new things is because after a while, things can start sounding like an echo chamber.

You hear the same things over and over.

The same stuff said in a different way.

Groups agreeing with one another on everything and everyone.

And any ideas to the contrary are disregarded at best.

For me, I could agree with you vehemently on something, but if you keep pounding the idea home, I start to see the contrary views. 

Your certainty makes me doubt.

So I stay away from fanatics. 

On all sides.

Or, perhaps better said, keep them at a distance.

Some of my favorite ideas are led by people who basically say:

If you don't get it, you're just a moron.

Which, you should know by now, I understand.

Maybe it's the smugness.

Maybe that's why my brain goes, "Well, maybe there is another view here."

I always liked a well-written dissent over the more popular majority opinion.

"How are you liking the company?"

"Well, this company feels like a Goliath. And I have always been a David guy."

And maybe that's it.

Maybe if a room feels like it's full of drooling, nodding, giants, I instinctively grab my rounds.

Has the art of cordial disagreement faded away?

Agree to disagree?

Do professors still give out their best grades to students who disagree with their point of view, but do so so articulately and well-reasoned that it deserves a top grade?

My concern is it seems the world is flocking more and more into these silos of safety.

Where everyone in this silo has to think a certain way.

They all say the same things, believe the same things, and if you do not, well then, please see yourself out.

I am proud to say I have very few people I would call true friends. And believe it or not, some of them disagree with me. I know, I know, impossible, you say.

But it's true. They have their own ideas. Their own guidelines. And when I need to hear another side to an angle I am considering, I go there first.

Break this argument.

Shatter it.

What am I missing?

Don't echo.

Counter.

Left jab?

Right straight.

Left headkick?

Right legkick.

Get out of them chambers that have endless mirrors.

Who wants a million versions of themselves looking back at them?

Woah, cool.