I'm right!

Therefore, you're wrong!

If you listen attentively, finding that stillness that allows you to hear what’s really being said, you’ll notice that most of the time, what people are saying, beneath the content of their speech and their replies, is, I’m right!

Truth, that is, what Is, has nothing to do with being right or correct. Truth is, whereas correctness is a normative signal or gesticulation born from insecurity. It self-validates a comforting fortress that needs to rebuff ceaseless little attacks to maintain its security.

It’s a cold way to live.

~

This issue—and it is a real issue—of the desire to always be correct, is one of the primary reasons so many conversations aren’t really conversations at all, and often leave one feeling deflated and tired. The need to be right! is the reason discussions feel more like a tally of facts and data than an actual, qualitative, and open heart-to-heart. You mention something (anything!) and get a single datum out of place, and in comes the march of the right brigade! Well actually…Isn’t it the case…I think you mean…I’m not sure it was…Don’t you mean?…Are you sure?…and on and on it goes, the squawks of a herd that just cannot stand the possibility of losing control for a nanosecond.

This is the reason, too, that debates and arguments are de facto pointless exercises, intellectual circlejerks where both sides not only are howling I’m right! I’m right! at the other side, but at the exact same time, get to show just how smart and well-read they are, too! The equivalent of en masse forum-brain, conversations have become dopamine relays, where each side is seeking only to get that sweet, sweet hit of the I’m right! juice, before carrying on their day.

The grand rhetorical theatre of intellectual debate has overstepped its bounds into the supermarket aisle and group chat. Everyone and anyone is socially forced to constantly take positions and defend themselves. The most banal chat is becoming a battlefield of validation and insecurity.

And what happens? What happens when someone is right? Have you noticed? Absolutely sod all. Both parties either agree or disagree in such a polite manner that it just doesn’t matter, and then go on about their days. The Truth and connection have been missed for the sake of a single brief moment of oh-so-sweet self-security.

People waiting for the next gap to jump in and Well, umm, actually! as to bolster the remaining dregs of quantified security they have left. Conversations becoming little more than a game of attention being accutely directed at obscure logic puzzles, factual validity, and Ah, gotcha!, all the while, both parties being entirely ignorant of the-bigger-picture, feeling, or personhood. What matters is the win!

The Truth of the matter doesn’t matter, the only thing of concern is exiting alive, that is, secure in the self-knowledge that you are correct.

~

'I teach that when it rains the pavement gets wet.' — G.I. Gurdjieff

~

In an age of excessive data and intellectually bloated masses, there has arrived some assumption that each person’s priors are stored in some vault of peer-reviewed articles, that said person could just pull out a source at a moment’s notice and verify their claims. The issue here, of course, is that as we all well know, no amount of papers or citations will suffice if someone has already stated their I’m right! secure position. Or, if they’re resourceful, they will supply papers to the contrary.

Practically speaking, discussions have become quantified, with a reliance on facts, figures, and statistics. In turn, this has led discussions to become anti-quality, wary of feeling, openness, and love. As if at some point, if we can just get the right amount of facts and data, then conversation will finally just stop, and we can all just go around congratulating each other on all being right! Of course, such an imaginary condition—wherein we all agree—makes it immediately clear just what this is all about, because at the same time, you are right, that means someone else is wrong! A double win!

And so, if we were to exist in this imaginary land wherein we all just agreed with one another, in time, we would become skeptical of the way in which other people agreed. Are they agreeing with me correctly? Do they even know what it is to agree? The content wouldn’t—and doesn’t—matter, the form is one of security, and a single hit of rightness is enough to last the whole day.

~

Everybody is talking about, nobody is speaking of. — Darren Allen

~

This same individualized cult of debate and rightness appears to have arrived alongside the conversational talking about mode.

You’ve probably noticed this already, but haven’t quite put your finger on it. The reason why a two-hour YouTube debate or monologue can seem very interesting—or even motivating—whilst you’re watching it, but as soon as you walk away from the screen, you can’t exactly remember what it was you were watching at all. This is because people are talking about things, theories, or books. They are name-dropping philosophers, texts, or ideas. They are quantifying ideas into hastily fired-off buzzwords or terms. As opposed to speaking of philosophy itself as an actual engagement, speaking about how the film made them feel, how the book affected their life, talking of the inner life of a philosopher, etc.

Roughly put, the former talking about is the aforementioned mode of conversation whereby little pieces of data are tactically used to—once again—prove that I’m right! Talking about things is largely a little tally game where one racks up dopamine hits and hopes to walk away from the conversation with a sense of winning. Whereas, the latter, speaking of, is a gentle mode full of love and openness that speaks because it speaks, it’s engaged as engagement itself, its interest doesn’t have an agenda of success or winning, and therein doesn’t care about failure or losing, it’s interested in such a way that it is vulnerably, open, and caring.

~

I’m right, you’re wrong!

I know you are, but what am I?

Entire nations of infantilized, quantity-cucks that have hypnotised themselves into believing that just the right assemblage (Please!) of facts, figures, and systems will not only suffice to alleviate the pressure building in their head and hearts, but at the same time delegitimize anyone who dared question them. Entire nations of adult-children whose mode of conversing is one inherently on the backfoot, ready to pounce on a discrepancy and secure them as victor! Entire nations of mechanized, fact-slinging robots, hellbent on shoving love and gentleness down a flight of stairs for the sake of a pat on the back from their self.

Take your time. Chat because you’re interested, not because you want to relieve some tension. Conversations aren’t debates. Step out of the theatre and calm down. No one cares if you’re wrong, or you lose, or you made a mistake, or you tripped up.

Grow a set of balls and be vulnerable.

Go look at the flowers, you philistine.