I started writing an article last week. It was going to be a good one. Somebody was going to get a thoroughly deserved slagging off. I don’t write many of those kind of pieces these days, so it was high time I really put somebody in their place.
Just to be sure, I did a little research first, in order to check I wasn’t being an idiot. And it fairly quickly became clear that while I did have some semblance of a point… so did they. The issue was rather more complex than it first appeared. In the end, I abandoned the piece entirely; the research needed to make it worth publishing was best spent on other things, although I might return to the topic at some point.
Which is fine. I’m not expecting any medals for a basic level of truthfulness and competence. Still, it seems a lesson worth noting publicly. If you never find yourself abandoning a position because it was fundamentally misguided, then you’re probably doing something wrong.
If you’re confident that your gut instinct and personal ideologies are always correct… they probably aren’t, you know.
* * *
One of the other blogs I follow has just posted something titled “Believing in Yourself”.
I never was very good at inspirational writing.