How to Never Argue Again
How knowing your core convictions let's you say no.
It’s not unheard of that, from time to time, I say something on Twitter that makes people mad. But, more surprisingly, it’s often what I don’t say that really gets people going. First, you have to understand that Twitter does not comprise a random sample. It attracts instead those who are contrarian, hostile, cranky and looking for a fight. Typically, I manage to avoid them. Not always, however. You know you’ve stumbled on one of these hornets when you hear them buzzing. They are never quite content to read what you have to say and to keep scrolling.
Instead, they challenge you, often on the basis of their misreading of what you’ve written, though that is a different issue. I sometimes respond, but never in the way they want. I might deflect. I might simply reject their premise, I might lol. But, I never argue. And this drives many of them crazy.
Many Twitter users, just like many people in real life, feel entitled to your time. They believe your audacity to post something they don’t like obligates you to waste hours in fruitless argument with them. I refuse. When they insist, I block them. Twitter accounts are free. Anyone who wants one can get one and post all day about how I am wrong. It’s his time. But as for me, I’m not interested in engaging.
It’s typical of these guys to accuse me of being afraid to argue. Self-flattery helps salve the wound of rejection, I suppose. The real reason I won’t argue, aside from valuing my time, is that when I was much younger, I did the internal work necessary to wrestle with the great questions of life until I found answers that both satisfied my intellectual hunger, brought me emotional comfort, and gave me a basis for developing wisdom.
I’m not interested in redoing all that work just to satisfy @alphlion5783. Knowing what I think about the base issues of life allows me to say no. I am independent and much more resistant to social pressure because I have done this work.
Almost no one does this kind of reflection now, and that oversight leaves them vulnerable to all kinds of unhappinesses. People who aren’t conscious of what they stand for are more easily blown by the winds of social pressure and driven into bad situations by their own anxieties and confusion. However, being conscious of your core convictions helps you live in alignment with your goals and your conscience, gives you a foundation, makes you a house upon the rock. Without this kind of foundation, we drift, we react, we panic. And that’s where most people are today.
Someone asked me on Twitter what the basic questions I answered for myself were. I said:
What is the ultimate nature of reality?
What is the nature of being human?
How do we know right from wrong?
What is the task of the individual life?
What is the human being’s ultimate destiny?
It doesn’t really matter what my answers to these questions are. Right now, we’re talking about you. All that matters right now is that you become aware that these questions exist, that your answers to them dictate much of your life, and that you need to know what your answers are. When you are crystal clear about these issues, other, smaller matters fall into place.
The trouble is that most people used to turn to religion to get answers to questions like this. While religion is, obviously, still a resource, most people function on a set of half-conscious answers they’ve picked up from the culture. They lack clarity, coherence and the courage to explore what they’ve been told about these bedrock questions. They rush headlong through life just sort of improvising on the basis of a philosophical pastiche they’ve inherited but never examined. You see the results everywhere manifest in our cultural chaos.
This little article is, I suppose, an apologia for thinking. If you want to live a more peaceful life, if you want the sense of security settled questions bring, you have to think. You can find answers in religion, but even then those answers require lots of thinking about their implications for your specific life. There is no way to have confidence in those answers without deep mindful reflection.
You might think I am saying everyone needs to be a philosopher, and maybe, in a small way, I am. Putting in the effort to reflect and integrate the answers to these questions is the price we pay for a settled spirit. So, yea, I encourage you to become a little bit of a philosopher.
However you do it: sitting with tea, writing in a journal, discussing with friends, focusing on these questions during a long drive, answering these questions for yourself is a must if you want the confidence required not to have to justify yourself to everyone who demands you do so. The freedom to say no is real freedom. And only by laying a conscious foundation for yourself can you refuse an argument you don’t want to have, only then are you free to move on while staying fully anchored.