I have long since believed that the best way to learn new things is through words. Let it be a long chat, a heated debate, or an all out war, one can not truly understand one’s convictions, until they have been properly challenged and successfully defended. Many see this challenge as an insult of sort, as if the one challenging them do not believe in their character or intelligence, when in fact this is not true. It shows more character to defend your belief, and more intelligence to defend it well than if you simply chose to walk away. Of course this is a double edged sword, because if you do lack the two characteristics previously stated, then the ‘exchange’ can turn very ugly very fast.
Since I was 4 years old, one of my favourite words has been “Why”. This has caused endless amusement and pain in both my parents and my teachers. From the first time I asked the teacher why we had to sit silently in our class room whilst she talked to the lady next door, to primary when I asked why people need calculators to do simple multiplications, to high school when I got curious in the inner workings of rainbows, and of course university when I wanted to take all my work home, proudly showing my parents, wanting to tell them the why. (My mum refused to let me take any tissue sections into the house, so it had its own holding bay in the garage, of course mum refused to see it) Of course the question why has also gotten me into more trouble with people I meet, and lead me deeper down the path of self discovery.
Why must people believe that what they currently hold as their view of the world is what defines them as a person indefinitely? And that a challenge on your view, is a personal attack that threatens to change the very foundation of who they are. No my friend, I am not attacking you on a personal basis for your beliefs, and if you are fortunate enough to be called friend, then understand that I will protect to the death your right to your beliefs. But I will challenge the premise that your belief was based upon, not just to learn more about the belief, but also more about you, and what defines you…
And so it is with this trait, which I continue to get told is quiet undesirable in girls, which I travel through life. My curiosity and thirst for knowledge urging me on… to try to understand more about those around me, to understand more about the madness that is my world, to understand more about what makes me… me. Some say that words are mightier then the sword, and I agree. However words are how you use it, and rather then a nuclear bomb of crude, vulgar, and insulting words many chose to adopt, I would rather spin them into sword, and await the day when one would appear, in shiny armour and dual me to win the ultimate prize…
