opinion

Opinion

We can prove that some strategies produce better results than others. However, human life is not always about straightforward strategies. We might not want to win. We might want to let our opponent win to gain some other advantage, or to be friendly, or to give them hope, or to sucker them in for a big punch in another match. The winning strategy and tactics to use is not opinion, it is demonstratable, reliable, provable methodology. The game of life has strategies and tactics that prove to be best, for most. Nevertheless, the majority of game play is based on opinion. We will be bombarded by opinion. Our parents have theirs as do our teachers and of course the preachers. You will read something and believe it to be true. However, the writer wrote what they did based on opinion. It may be an opinion shared by many others, but it is still opinion. The best game players of the game of life understand opinion and its effects. You need to decide what opinion to take on board and what to disregard. That choice of what opinion to utilise makes you what you are. Why do cats scatter and sheep bunch together? I tell you that sheep do not bunch together very often. They scatter across the fields grazing where they feel like grazing. They only bunch together when corralled. They may join the bunch so that they work more like a gang. They may use the safety in numbers principle or make a dash for it. The idea that people, too many people sometimes, behave like sheep is opinion. People do the same as what others are doing, not to be complicit but to act as a gang, ganging up on the few that want to go their own way. The more in the gang the more pressure they can apply on those not joining them. There is a saying about property and that is location, location, location. In the game of life, it is opinion, opinion, and opinion. If you are to take one thing from this chapter, remember the word opinion. People make opinion seem like fact. It rarely is. I know. When the entire planet lost its head, I knew that the whole world was pushing opinion not truth. I also know how deep-seated opinion can be. It can be seated deeply enough to destroys relationships. There is no logic nor rhyme or reason to it. It just is and it will test your resolve to breaking point and beyond.

Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Is that a fact or opinion. If you assume it is a scientific fact you may get caught out. Those boiling water to cook high up a mountain can fall very ill not realising that water boils at 70 degrees at certain altitudes. The belief that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius is false if it is salty. Scientific facts are only correct in precise circumstances. The more variables the more things lend themselves to opinion not fact.

Waste is using more than necessary. Logically it is not wasting food if you leave some to avoid over-eating and getting fat. The concept of waste is another opinion thing. I am sure people can have solid justifications for arguing that you are wasting what you have obtained. People will also judge you by how much time you seem to be wasting. But it is your time to use how you see fit. What seems like a waste of time to some, is in fact productive contemplation and relaxation. That has value. It can save time in the future. The reason we feel that we are wasting time is because we are not getting those chemical highs from the reward gleaned from progress. All lives are wasteful from the individual’s perspective because every game of life comes to an end. Everyone could have done more. Achieved more in a shorter space of time. The less you waste the more reward your feel - up to a point. Time always reigns supreme in the game of life. We might get the estimation of how much time we are allotted quite wrong. We may die tomorrow. It doesn’t matter if we die tomorrow though, for two reasons. Firstly, we are going to die at some point anyway and secondly, we enjoy planning the future today regardless of how long we live.

The end of the game can come quicker than expected for some. For others it is not soon enough. Days drag slowly. They find themselves withering by the wayside with dreary repetitive routines. Sometimes the mind is willing, but the body isn’t. The only challenges are the daily grind of dealing with an ever-growing list of ailments. You can only chuckle at the wisdom of the quote “Don’t get old”. You can hope that you may be one of the lucky ones that reach a ripe old age in good shape. Satisfying yourself with simple pleasures, right up to the end with a swift departure during a peaceful last night.

Living forever is more appealing if we remain in good health. Some believe they live forever in an afterlife of sorts. Some believe that they will create a legacy that lives on long after they are gone. The longer we are set to live the more cautious we may become. I suspect it would be unenviable being a beginner in a world of long living people. The incredibly rich and powerful won’t get be so handily unseated by their inherent perishability.

Plenty do their upmost to stay as healthy as possible hoping to maximise their longevity. Is a life a bit misdirected if it is consumed by self-preservation? Is the winner the one who lasts the longest? What is more important to you, quantity or quality, length of a life versus how good a life is? Where one is maintaining the best body, another is building the best house in the street. We have our own aims, so why mock those with different ones.

Some aspire to play their own game where possible rather than conform. That can be in the game of life as a whole or within the many sub-games. Courtship, politics, and work to name but a few. If you have ever sat with many others in a large auditorium listening to a great motivational speech, you are enthused to make changes. The speaker rouses the audience with what they are espousing. However, these thoughts pay no heed to the trade-offs. Seemingly positive changes bring downsides too. People are manipulative. Are they helping or are they getting you to do what they think is best? They may be proud of their 100-hour working week, but disregard how unsustainable that can be.

Most of us in the game of life will be spectators. It is numerically impossible to be any other way. A thousand in the stands for each one on the pitch. As a supporter we make an invaluable contribution by adding to the atmosphere in the football stadium or providing vital support to businesses and the community. All contributions count as every one of us has an impact even if just an ethereal interference. We don’t have to do something outstanding to feel successful in life.

We may find success at something then be faced with a dilemma; do we rest on our laurels or quit and start some other game? Having mastered something, we might be inclined to find a new challenge. We have shown our mettle in one arena but may not make the same mark in another. How do we measure our success anyway? Is it measured in how famous we become? Or how wealthy? Or how happy or contented we feel. Do we have to achieve something exceptional? We might want to question our motives sometimes. Notoriety in particular is not a panacea. The job of running the highest office in the land may be enviable, but it is also restrictive. There is a trade-off between privileges and responsibility with freedom to do what you want anonymously at any time and on any date.

There will be many outside influences vying you to use the same scoring mechanism as them. Some measure progression by knowledge gained. Others value the creation of a family or position in a society. Many count the amount of material possessions amassed. If you walk around a graveyard, do you inspect the ornateness and size of the headstone or respect the age attained. Do you investigate the amount left in the will? Alternatively, do you sit and count the number of visitors to a plot and remark upon the freshness and quality of the flowers abandoned there.

Thankfully for those remaining, few people will rip up the pitch and knock down the goal posts when they retire from the sport. In fact, there seems to be a desire to ensure that the club is left in a better state than when they joined. Many bequeath a little for the enjoyment of future players and future spectators. They want their club to march forwards and hope that it will continue to succeed when they are no longer around. Such acts of generosity make them feel good about themselves and we can be grateful for it. A tree is planted for the next generation to awe.