Risk Controversy & Pursue Thought Provoking
Today I posted an article to Gnome Stew that a friend described as controversial. I did foresee the article as ruffling a few feathers, but I did not see it as being insulting. What I was hoping that the article would be is thought provoking. Did I hit that mark? I feel that I did.
Thought provoking or controversial comes at a price though. You will be misunderstood, and that may be your own fault. You will be judged, and those judgments may be tough to deal with. You will be standing alone, at least at first if you are right (maybe forever despite being right), and that is going to leave you vulnerable.
So what? Be at fault. Be judged. Be vulnerable. Risk being controversial, and always strive to be thought provoking.
People who do not pursue thought provoking ideas are accepting things as they currently are as being good enough. I do not believe that in the history of the human race that there has ever been nor will there ever be a time when anything is good enough.
You can always strive to be a little bit faster, stronger, smarter, healthier, or whatever. Nothing is perfect and improvements can be made upon anything. The only way to find what those improvements are is to push forward into unknown territory and ask “What if?” For a writer, this means risking controversy in the pursuit of being thought provoking.
I strive to be a thought provoking writer. I try my best, and it has and will continue to bite me in the ass. Yet I look upon every single thing that I have written that caused a controversy of some sort with a smile. Whether it is a work in progress only seen by friends, on a blog, in a forum, a tweet, or an email I read it and nod my head in satisfaction.
Not because the content was good. Sometimes the content is awful. Sometimes it is just plain wrong. I feel satisfied because it always results in my learning something new. Every time, without fail, I learn a lesson of some sort.
Suffer the controversies no matter how big or small. It is worth it if the result is that you provoked your own thoughts to a higher level.
The problem with this approach is that you’ll eventually get stung. It’s happened to me on forums and newsgroups many times. You try to argue or present a point that’s counter to the accepted wisdom and they’ll come at you like a hoard and descends into flame wars or bitter personal attacks. Sure some will see what you mean and agree with you, but others can’t get past it. I used to enjoy online discussion, found it invigorating, even if I was wrong in the end, I felt I learned something.
But alas, as I get older, and the people I discuss with get older, it turns sour much quicker. You end up being labelled a troll, unfairly or not. It seems people only want to be told what they already agree with it or within the bounds of accepted arguments. “Abandon all rationality all ye enter here”.
Just my 2c.