Opus 2025-211: Rigid or Flexible

 
I enjoy a good discussion.  One element of a good discussion is to have enough difference of opinion to challenge your presuppositions.  Another is to have enough agreement that you actually can communicate.  I’ve noticed that sometimes it’s easier to communicate with people who are a little bit flexible than with people who are totally rigid.

It doesn’t really matter the topic.  You can be talking religion or politics.  You can get off on how to cook a steak.  It can be about naming your children.  We all run into these extremes and often end up totally frustrated or with bloodied heads.

Both the rigid and the flexible can know what they believe.

The rigid person is very solid in what they believe and think.  They can explain why they believe it.  They tend to be set in the channel and unable to change.  New facts are either ignored or explained away.  Sometimes they are re-defined so that they lose all meeting.  The rigid person knows what they know and don’t try to confuse them because it won’t work.  There are times when being rigid is a real benefit.  One of those times is when there are many people around you who have no basis for belief and just keep making things up as they go along.  Once you know what you like or what works for you it’s really a waste of time experimenting.  I think of a restaurant we used frequent.  I always got the same thing.  Why?  Because I had already explored the menu and knew what I liked.  I was considered rigid.

Being flexible can also be either beneficial or a disaster.  Sometimes a little bit of flexibility will help you adjust the situation without losing your basic principles.  Sometimes too much flexibility, waters down everything you believe him and makes it pointless to keep discussing or talking.

If you are reading a book and it becomes ridiculous, you can close it.  If you were smart enough to get it from the library you can return it.  You can’t take your friends back to the library.

homo unius libri