Being Objective When You Already Have an Opinion

I'd like to think I'm open-minded but can I be sure? Well, let's see, has anyone ever convinced me of anything opposite to what I already thought? Maybe. I am happily married after all. Have I ever conceded a point in an argument or debate? Once in a while. Hey, I've got three sisters.

This is tougher than I thought. Alright, I can be convinced but it's not easy. The problem is that there are two Mental Sentinels on duty guarding my brain and it's not easy to get a new idea through.

The first one is there to enforce my personal moral code; what a joke. It's not even an official moral code. It's just my own personal moral code. Sheesh. But if anybody's going to change my mind they're going to have to go through here.

The second Mental Sentinel is there to enforce that "I am always right". It's just human nature that people like to be right and I'm no different. But I long ago found a way to get around that moronic gatekeeper. I've convinced myself that since I was so good at thinking up brilliant ideas, that I must be equally good in recognizing the good ideas of others. Even if they come from people I don't otherwise agree with. It's a source of pride. If someone else wins the argument it's only because I was wise enough to see it. It's a stretch, I know, but it helps with the self-esteem.

I learned long ago that most people are contrarians at heart. Their first instinct is to disagree. Surprisingly this turns out to be a form of open-mindedness. They've trained their minds to test every idea so thoroughly and objectively that upon hearing an idea they must subject it to rigorous cross examination. I'm no longer offended by that.

So yeah, I can be convinced, and I can disagree, but that's not what really makes me open-minded. What really makes me open-minded is I do research. Sometimes I have to decide about something and I do not have all the facts. What I have to do is make myself find out more about it. It's a crazy pain in the neck and a big waste of time but I try to do it. I want to be right and I want to be open-minded so I pretty much have to.

So last week I found myself Googling the candidates for the Suffolk County Legislature. Why even bother, you say? Well Rob Calarco lives in my neighborhood so he kind of brings it up all the time. He's the Democrat. Yay! John Giannott has a sign down on the corner so I figured l have to find out what he has to say too. He's the Republican.

I'm a good Googler. I love to Google. But I could not Google John Giannott. I mean I found him alright. He has a lot of friends on Facebook who all seem to like him. He was on the football team in high school. He's thanking everybody who's going to vote for him in advance so you can tell he's a really nice guy. But I couldn't really find out what he wants to do. I'm not really sure what his plans are. It's just too early, he'll probably get to all of that later but I can't figure it out yet.