Magic Happens where disagreement happens
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Homogeneous places feel safe but stagnate quickly. You sit around the conversation pit and the conversation has gotten stale. Yuck.. what a bore. You share your ideas and it’s hardly met with any challenge. Blah. Like everything fed on the algorithm it seems these people now too have become a victim of their own scrolling. Everything is the same. It's like a copy paste format on how to be human. How lame. Truly. Use your brain to voice an opinion you feel has weight. An opinion that challenges others to think. It feels as though everyones stuck in a fog. The fog? More like a plague that sucks the life out of others. In a world that fears conflict, bask in it. Disagreement is where the magic happens.
No one seems to have an opinion on anything anymore. The opinions heard today are kind of pointless and lean more on “bean soup theory” philosophies rather than on the basis of foundational reasoning. You share an idea that should spark a conversation where someone passionately disagrees and attempts to share their point of view. Yet, you’re met with scraps. It's an odd feeling, it mostly feels like talking to a tape recorder of “mhm, no yeah”. Why are we even talking right now if your chime is “mhm, no yeah”? I thought of the idea of revolutionizing the 90’s. There was the idea of bringing back third spaces. The third space where no one is quite the same. Bringing back these third spaces where everyone was different. Everyone found a space through a different person that allowed for new perspectives; brought together by (?) the love of the game or a genuine good time. A lot of us have kind of stopped living and relying mostly on the things we see and hear online which has started to kill the beauty in conversation. Personalities falling flat, regurgitating curated opinions instead of forming our own. Everyone follows the same algorithm. that’s why it’s so refreshing to see someone who very obviously lives a little outside of the box. I knew someone named John who sat outside of the coffee bar juggling ball pins. No joke. John shared regret for being one of the founders for the thing stripping you of your own opinions but in that 5 hour conversation we agreed, disagreed, laughed, and joked in different languages; its funny because it kind of became a spectacle for everyone at the coffee bar. Others joined in with side commentary but it was really something that piqued interest in this space and it ended with a private invitation to the horse races.
Theres been a recent surge of the idea of an “Anthropolegic Lens” being applied while out. Babe you’re not applying an “anthropologic lens” by regurgitating the same 3 ideas floated around since nam. “pastels for spring, how revolutionary”. with the rise of analog media, how about we rethink our media choices? Part of the reason why I feel others lack opinions on ideas is because of the narrow minded focus on what the camera has zoomed in on that month. This one just so happens to be about applying an “anthropologic lens”. Like asking for a book recommendation it’s getting met with: milk and honey, just kids by Patti smith, why men love bitches. You think about your parents and their friends. They hardly fully agree on something. Yes, the core is the same but different opinions and viewpoints allow you to think in a way that’s refreshing and kind of out of your scope. They all consumed different forms of media, bonded by a core belief but the vast variety in media consumption shaped different interpretations of those core beliefs. Third spaces and experience forced cross pollination. Different people with very different media diets led to different interpretations of shared values. Now we curate our environments so tightly that everyone thinks the same. A mournful loss of intellectual friction in an age of access, allowing your brain to get lost is seldom.
Yet again, I crave dynamic tension that forces you to sharpen ideas. If everyone agrees, nothing evolves. We’re too focused on the performance of thought versus actual thought.Think of translating a piece of your language into another. It can’t fully be translated but you manage to think of another way to say that one word that has no real meaning. No one wants to stray away from the norm or each other but that’s where the magic happens. Now, you go to a place and unfortunately know exactly who’s going there. We’ve curated ourselves into sameness. I wonder how much more different and interesting conversations would be if others were more willing to exercise their brains, strike up conversation with someone far older than you or with someone who’s not like the ones in your circle. Think provocatively instead of taking things as is. Dare to be curious, accept the willingness to be wrong. Take a risk in conversation. Disagreement isn’t dangerous, it’s generative. For the stoics, the crux of ethics was curiosity and investigation. The possibility of being wrong. They understood these things as being “for” the self as much as the collective. Which ideas connect you to others, and to whom? Why? Do you care to know more or are you content with the white noise?
disagree well.
-z
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