Life is hard for folks with awful ideas.
Unless you need something vandalized, these people are useless.
They can’t contribute to conversations.
But that never stops them from talking.
Among the more popular awful ideas is this:
“When I discredit you, it makes me seem smarter.”
What they don’t understand is; it requires an idea to discredit an idea.
And they have awful ideas.
So they resort to labeling you.
My current favorite label is, “amateur”.
It shows up in phrases like:
You’re just an amateur apologist
You’re an amateur blogger
You’re an amateur theologian
Which might insult me if it weren’t true.
But since I am an amateur apologist…
…it puzzles me why anyone bothers mentioning it.
Because it’s always the amateurs who call me an amateur.
Pot, meet Kettle.
It never occurs to them they aren’t qualified to assess my theology…
…because they are also amateurs.
They believe that my amateur status automatically means my ideas are incorrect.
They ignore the reality that amateurs can succeed.
Sometimes an amateur golfer hits a hole-in-one.
Sometimes an amateur apologist raises an irrefutable point.
Sometimes an amateur blogger states a bit of truth.
The bad idea people can’t admit any of this.
They determine the worth of an idea by looking at the source.
Which is (not surprisingly) an awful idea.
A much better idea is to listen to what is said without regard for who is speaking.
Consider new ideas and compare them with your own.
When you discover the new idea is superior…
…replace your old idea with the new one.
Do this regularly and you won’t be an amateur thinker for very long.
In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 Responses
Thanks. Just. . .
Thanks.
Wow! John, you give me goosebumps! This is wonderful!
Thank you – I have silenced myself more times than I can count for being an amateur. I think I learned at an early age (lots of being discounted) that I had to be an “expert/older/Dr/Ph.D./etc…” in order to speak or write what was on my mind or in my heart.
Thank you, for this.
It gives me greater courage and freedom to be able to practice speaking and writing with less timidity, shyness, or outright terror.
I remember Paul advising young Timothy not to let people override him or shut him down because of his youth (amateur status in the eyes of oppositional no-nothings).
Thank you for your helpful, thoughtful words. I know you’ve had to deal with difficult people, and I’m thankful for your distilling lessons learned to help others (me).
Thank you!
🙏💕
Rule by experts is one of the fundamental doctrines of Progressivism.
It’s why leftists get so upset when they meet someone who has a brain of their own and knows how to use it.