biased opinion

(en inglés porque tenía ganas de escribir en inglés, gracias)

it seems to me that whenever you are stating an opinion or making any sort of claims about any given topic, people will automatically try to classify you or rather put a tag over your forehead and judge you over for that tag and not so much for the content of your ideas.

this gets pretty ridiculous sometimes, like when you are trying to defend a certain unpopular matter and all of a sudden you are a despicable villain and they become the champions of everything that is just and honorable, when all you were trying to bring to the table was equilibrium and reason.

the way I see it, there is no such things as good and evil, there is only whatever it is convenient for you and what is not, and as such, every opinion has a bias. Of course, myself or any other person that I may like or dislike, also has a bias. That being said, you cannot be universally correct or wrong about anything, because you will always be siding with your cause, whatever that may be, even if your cause is having no cause at all.

now you might think that there are some universally good things like being healthy, well nourished and happy, but that is not because they are good per se, but because they are good for us, in other words, they are simply convenient for us, and mainly for me, I mean for an individual, and I do not want to hear about I would give my life for a loved one, because that is not being selfless, you do that because that is what makes you feel good, you do it for yourself not for the good of others, because doing something for the good of someone else is fueled by you believing that that is good, and thus you do it because you believe in that and that makes you feel good.

this same thing can also be linked to feelings like love or friendship. But I must say, usually what is called love is actually infatuation which is a very different thing. Personally, I do not see love as a real feeling, it just does not behave as such. Love behaves much more like an ideal, a concept. To me it is more like honesty, responsibility or even wit. These are things that we convince ourselves of having in our minds and actions and embrace them. If you love someone, that is because of well established reasons. Feelings are usually not very solid, they most often tend to be ephemeral, but on the other side, ideals are just quite the opposite and they take quite some time to settle on us.

the fact that these ideals or perceptions, are established on reasons and experience, does not make them reasonable, for there are indeed things that we convince ourselves in spite of being wanting. That is not a problem by itself, we can always correct or change our perceptions. The problem is that often we simply do not. People is used to not challenge their convictions, especially when these have been around in their heads for a long time and they have served convenient purposes for them and make them feel comfortable.

personal experience, perceptions and intuitiveness as tools for life are very useful, but we must recognize that as useful as they may be and as precious as we might hold them, they are extremely faulty. They do not give us objective information, they only gather biases for life. To be as objective as we can, we must use precise tools for observation and measurement, use a language free of ambiguities to make up explanations that match up with reality and most importantly, be open to scrutiny, discussion and corrections. Such a thing does exist in the real world, and it is called science, that it might not be free of guilt, but it is by far, our best tool for the seeking of truth. Even science has its own enemies in bad science and pseudoscience, politics, religion and others, but that it's a whole other deal.

now, being biased does not have to be necessarily bad, in fact I find quite admirable when a person recognizes his or her own bias while maintaining an honest and solid position. What I do think is that it is really annoying when people believe they are being really and genuinely objective and reasonable when they are just being a blindfolded biased fool of a person. Regardless, this behaviour is very common and one can encounter this in almost any place and discussion. The rules of the game are simple, one opinion or position must become the dominant one and everything else is a deviation from what is right, the weird, the unfitting.

I have been asked frequently why I cannot just listen an opinion and keep my mouth shut out of respect and well, I could do it, but I most often than not I just go on and try to balance things out or at least what I think it is balancing things out. They say to me I just have to oppose whatever comes up to me, that I have to have the opposite position to any given topic. I must recognize it, I do do that very frequently. Whenever I hear some opinion I am always trying to find flaws in it. Of course I can recognize a good point, I am never hesitant to express my agreement but in the same way I am always keen to express my disagreement or just adding something missing to balance things out.

but you see, this is my own bias and I am happy with it, to me, that is a good bias to have. I like skepticism, reason and solid arguments, even if they take long to explain (as you might have already figured out), but sometimes it is necessary to take a long time to explain something or to use some kind of vocabulary. Complex words are the way they are because they often describe complex concepts or situations that would rather require a lot of simple words to explain so they actually make explanations shorter rather than longer. I am very well aware that this approach is very exhausting for most people, and even though I would very much rather not annoy people, and I actually do try to avoid it when possible, I have to be coherent.

by being coherent I am not trying to say that one must defend one's position even if it is refuted through and through, I believe one must always be in a constant search for the truth and follow that path to wherever that might leads us, even if we do not like it. And it is precisely here where we often fail. We like the advantages and reassurance certain position gives us but we do not like it when that same position turns against us, the funny thing is that instead of recognizing that every single point of view has its good and also its bad things, or rather convenient and inconvenient aspects, we start deceiving ourselves into thinking that everything else is wrong instead of our own views.

this makes us anxious, angry, annoyed and often, frighten. I guess it is natural to feel that way, I have experienced it many times, I have learned that it is not a very good idea to get too attached to any position, but not many think that way. When you start questioning someone about something and you get to parts in which you start getting into disagreements, some will just get tired and ignore you, others will attack you, not your ideas, but directly to yourself, you are this and that they say, call you names and put a tag on you. But sometimes, you find some other persons that will take it openly and inquisitively and these ones will tell you better and make you feel like a fool.

now, you can keep being fool or you can do something about it. Instead of getting angry or feeling ashamed, we should overcome these feelings and try to learn a lesson, to expand the boundaries of our limited knowledge and all in all, just get better. There is no age limit to learning nor there is only a certain type of person from which we can learn from. We can, and we should try to learn at every age and make no distinctions about what kind of people we can actually learn from. Prejudices are clearly also biases, and they most of the times stand in the way of new experiences.

knowledge is very valuable and very enjoyable thing to have, but the process of obtaining it is usually not a swift ride. Learning puts us face to face with that which we ignore, we must be humble to truly learn, we have to be honest with ourselves and accept that we are indeed ignorant in some regards and that we wish to be enlightened. Not a lot of people enjoys this process and the more you spend without challenging and testing our knowledge, the cozier you feel with what you already know. Even if your knowledge is phony, if you have spent a lot of time without questioning it, you start to feel certain about it. From there on, it gets more difficult to really learn, to re-educate yourself, this is a common behaviour in adults.

once you get out of school, one will usually try to avoid everything related to it, because now we are better that that, we know everything we needed to know, and you feel you are entitled to your opinion. Of course this is not exclusive to adults, it happens at any age, but it's just more common to see in older people. When you stick to biases and prejudices long enough, it gets almost impossible to make them look like what they are.

no wonder why people gets offended or scared when they hear opinions and ideas that are not within their frames of reference, in a way it is not their fault, it's just that they are not used to being exposed to new concepts. At the end, people feels the need to be secure, and sometimes that is even more important than truth itself. Some people have some already made conclusions, and they spend their time and efforts finding out facts to support their conclusions instead of actually making observations, finding facts and drawing conclusions out of them.

this post has got way too long and I am saying way too little, so I am going to stop writing this post, mostly because it has been in the drafts section of my email account for a very long time now. I will continue with my nonsense rants more often.
(meses tenia en mis borradores)
salu2