Why are you always right?

Did Jesus himself secretly come back to Earth and spend his nights sleeping on the couch bed in your living room and teaching you the rights about life as we know it by day? That can’t be right.. And why would you make Jesus sleep on the couch bed!? What the hell is wrong with you? That’s JESUS! (Mr. Christ if you’re nasty) You know them springs be pokin’! Jesus got better stuff to do than hang out at yo’ crib all week anyway. They didn’t have The Mall of America or Disney World when he was here the first time, so he gots to get his shop on and experience the happiest place on Earth.

So, my all-knowers, what makes you so right? I used to be just like you. The rightest. Righter than 3 lefts. Righter than a Sarah Palin John McCain bisque(eww, bitter). Righter than the hand most of us use to jot, jerk, and jab with. Righter than Street Fighter.. And anybody who told me any different could get a hadouken to the face. What was it that gave me this power of rightness you ask? (The Tea Party?) Well.. I don’t really know. That’s how wise I have become.. Knowing that I’m not sure. Here’s an explanation with merit posted in the comments of a recent post over on VerySmartBrothas.com by JohnTHESkywalker:

“Pride is a super-security prison that protects that inner child from damage from the outside world. When you’re proud, your self-esteem inflates. You get your Kanyeezy on singing “damn that man shouldn’t have all that power!!!” Without uttering a single word. People gaze in magnificence and the pleasure principle (which can be facilitated if the ego [false self] is stroked). It can also tie into the “God-complex” that we all inherited.”

Pride.. Ego.. Defense mechanisms to keep the heart of us safe. To keep us at our best. Win a few battles with your almighty rightness and you feel invincible. The problem is that we proceed as if we really are invincible.. Livin’ like we’re bulletproof if you will. Next thing you know, you’re using every trick in the book to prove that O.J. and R. Kelly didn’t do it. U don’t even like Tropicana and you damn sure don’t like piss! (Or maybe you do, freak-McDouble)

It starts in adolescence. Perhaps sooner for some(early bloomers). At 13, I would argue with my step-mother about everything from parenting tactics to age appropriateness. At the time I was pretty sure I won every argument, especially the ones that ended in me being in the house for the weekend(“She just mad cuz I made her feel stupid”). It wasn’t until my younger sisters became teenagers and I more of an observer than a contestant that I realized what was really going on.

At that age, you feel powerful and powerless at the same time. You feel like you know so much without really knowing anything at all. You feel like everybody’s tryna hold you down. You begin to feel like you can rationalize anything – that your logic is flawless. If you were like me, you didn’t hear yours or anyone else’s argument, you just kept bustin’ shots until your opponent was dead.. err.. I mean gave in. No winning the argument, just spinning the argument. Some of us still do this today especially in the heat of battle(note: never argue angry). You are so determined to win that as soon as your brain sees signs of losing, you get to spinnin’ ‘n’ spinnin’..

For example. Joe Brown and Jay Black are having a discussion about smartphones. Joe is an iPhone. Jay loves Android phones. And Jim Beige is there too.. He has a Blackberry, but he’s irrelevant because who still has a Blackberry..? Joe says the iPhone is better because it’s a pre-packaged deal, fast, easy to use, has tons of apps, et cetera. Jay says Android phones are better because there’s variety in phone choice, Android is more customizable, onscreen widgets, Flash player, AT&T sux(let’s pretend Verizon still hasn’t gotten into Apple’s panties yet), et cetera. Now suppose Joe lands a haymaker with “Businesses are beginning to convert to iPhones and it is the most popular phone in the country right now”. BOOM! Whatchu gon’ do, Jay? Jay can’t think of an argument to top that, but that’s not what his mind tells him. His mind pushes play on T-Pain singin’ “All I do is win! Win! WIN!” mixin’ with Jamie Foxx singin’ “You know you lookin’ at a winner! Winner! WINNER!” and he comes back with “Well everybody I know has an Android phone except you!” Now first off, that’s probably not even true. Even if it were, it switches the focus from phone statistics to the preferences of their respective social circles. If Joe Brown bites, this argument could go on forever. At that rate they won’t even be discussing phones anymore thus revealing no clear winner(which makes everybody a winner.. or a loser). The moral of this fantastical tale?

Lose.. It’s okay..

By the way, Joe was a centaur and Jay was a golem. Fantastical indeed.. Sometimes right is right and wrong is wrong. Life is so complex that it’s not so easy or realistic to always be right as your stupid and treacherous teenage brain originally told you. True wisdom is knowing that we know nothing. Somebody smarter than me said that and it’s just poetic enough for me to buy it. Agreeing to disagree and admitting being wrong are acquired skills. We’re all just tossing around opinions based on our own flawed logic(especially yours). Let’s not beef about things we can’t prove and let’s be humble enough to admit defeat.

Team Android, by the way.. but I respect my iPhone users’ preference difference. Not Blackberry users though.. Those phones are just terrible.