Idealogical discomfort

When I was 19, I met someone I knew only for a few months.

We weren’t especially close. But we spoke about the most obscure things: About what it would be like if everyone had 3 hands, what if everyone in the world spoke the same language. You get the idea.

In these conversations, I realised that they saw the world differently from me. Not dramatically different, but enough to wonder.

There were two huge realisations in retrospect

1. It was unsettling because I couldn’t agree with them or dismiss what they were saying.

2. They were not trying to convince me. Not one bit.

They would lay out how something that made sense to them, then pause and ask how I saw it. It felt less like a debate and more like two people examining the same idea from different angles.

There was no judgement in it. No sense that one of us had to be right.

That was new to me.

Until then, most disagreements I’d experienced were subtle contests. I took opinions personally. Changing my mind felt like backing down. Conversations had winners, even if no one said it out loud.

What I learned from them has been key to who I am today.

When someone’s worldview clashes with yours doesn’t mean it’s wrong. My instinct has always been to resolve that discomfort pronto. But, I learnt that if you held on to discomfort long enough, it loses its edge. And then your mind opens up.

Getting over the hump of discomfort was key. It took me a while before I got over the hump the first few times.

Cut to today, it’s a few seconds.

Today, when people say one of my strengths is that I don’t judge what they say, I know where it comes from.

Sometimes it comes across as indifference. But I would frame it as restraint.

If you sit long enough with discomfort, judgement fades away.