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Am I Argumentative?

I have often been perplexed when people ask me if I am argumentative. At some ends I have been known as a pompous and someone who argues a lot, one who doesn’t budge in his views and at an extremely parallel end I have been rated as someone extremely calm and patient :P. I really find it very hard to put a label on myself when people ask me this. But I do have to agree, I sure have argued about quite a bit of things on my way!

I like to go down swinging sometimes

I think I really used to be that someone who would go down swinging, argue to the wits end, trying to hold on to that one view and stick to it no matter what anyone said, no matter how much sense it made. More than 90% of the time it just turned out to be high pitched arguments without much of a solution or a sensible talk. And like you know, the consequences of a heated argument are never good. And I have always proclaimed that people who argue with me were idiots :P. But there was something I believe which I had to realize on the way. I might not be able to pin point that one incident where things changed and I started being extremely mature all of a sudden :D.

But they seem to backfire a lot

But somehow arguments seem to take a whole new perspective these days. I have wondered quite a few times as to what the purpose of an argument has been. Most times it has been just to feel a little superior, sometimes to pull someone down, few times to prove a point and most times to prove that I am always right! And as a consequence, friendships were naturally very hard to maintain – of course why would someone want to be with an obnoxious guy who can make you feel bad in an instant.

Who does the argument affect most?

But I think it was a good start to realize that I was being obnoxious and it was a very good thought to realize who the argument was affecting the most – ME. Everytime I argued I felt bad irrespective of whether I was proved right or not. And it never really seemed to accomplish much at all! And I also realized that the chances of having an intelligent debate were much lesser since before it could get to that level one of us would have stormed off with heated tempers. In the end, the argument did much harm than any good.

Were most of those arguments sensible or stupid?

And something else which made the thought worthwhile was to identify how many of those arguments were trivial, right from someone skipping a red light to the ideals of renaissance and revolutions. I think that is when I had inception to the art of trained ignorance. I think we all need that in very strong doses, I think it is very important to realize what makes sense and what doesn’t. Like the video above shows, there is nothing much you can accomplish with a silly fight or even an argument. If someone is completely unwilling to take your thoughts and ideas as a possibility, it is highly likely that he is going to have an intelligent conversation with you. If that is the case, would you want to spend so much of energy arguing about what is right or wrong or would you rather let him and his stupid idea go down the the drain?

There is no need for name calling!

You don’t have to say that it is stupid, you don’t even have to make a gesture, maybe just smile and ignore and propose an alternate thought about the idea. I think it is at that time when we realize how we want to control the situation – whether we want to make the other person feel bad, whether we want to win an argument or whether we just want a specific thing in a specific way? I guess if the concern is the outcome, the very idea of a heated argument or a trivial debate is void. It takes a slight change in perception to see that situation from an external point of view but the results it can deliver  are noteworthy