I believe in a thing called...

October 14, 2007 - Sunday

I stepped into The Twilight Zone this weekend. I'm in Duluth, driving an SUV, and shopping at *gasp* WalMart. I feel like a fraud. I take mass transit and shop locally! I swear it! But when it's convenient, I guess I don't.

Which leads me to this: Why do we have the opinions, nay the convictions, we do? And really, how strong are they? What is behind all of this, and is this really what makes us stand or fall when faced with adversity or scrutiny?

There are always those things that are drilled into you from childhood. Of course, not everything our parents did was correct in our eyes, but that makes us just as apt to not do something as we are to do the things we agree with our family about. I'm not sure if it is because we hold our family's values so dear or if we've known it longer than anything else, but these things seem to be most important and almost impossible to change in our minds.

But what about the contradiction in convictions with your family? Where does the path break? When is it that you decide that you're opinions are different and theirs may not be correct? Do these opinions and convictions have as much force or belief as the ones you grew up with? Do these change and mutate as you get older? Will I always be "liberal," or will I grow more conservative as I get older, as my dad predicts?

I guess it boils down to how open you are to changing your convictions and opinions. Is it possible to call them convictions if they change?

Maybe I'll just let Kevin Smith sum it up for me:
"I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant."