People live in a social world. They need to mingle with people at work and at home. One of the necessary part of this lifestyle is that we need to talk. Talk has no effect, it is just air with noise but still it carries a lot of meaning to people. Also the problem is compounded by the educated scientific mind which needs to or is forced to know a lot. From scientific phenomenon to various religious beliefs, to celebrity gossip, sports, entertainment, world news and politics. Personal stuff like job, kids, future, past and list goes on and on. While keeping updated with all this data a person ends up having a good time collecting all this mostly unnecessary data. While doing all this along the way a person forgets that his opinions have no meaning really and it is for his own entertainment. This creates a lot of pressure to have opinion on everything. You cannot afford to not have an opinion. No matter what the context is.
Whether the question is how much tip to be given in a restaurant or what to do in Middle East politics. New issues keep popping up and we need to keep our opinions updated. Never do we realize our opinion is for our own sanity and entertainment, it has no bearing on most of the things. What to do in a ongoing war, or wether a certain celebrity should have done something what they did, is just small talk. we dont really need to take any sides, in fact we dont need to be aware of it at all. It is thecompulsion of the internet world and us knowing how to read, which makes us aware of all useless things going around. In fact it has no bearing outside you and it is part of the setup of various other inputs.
In fact best opinion is not to have an opinion, an opinion brings with itself a load to the mind and there is a maintenance needed of that opinion which drags a lot of memory and idle time of brain. Everything is not worth an opinion, their is a need to pick and chose what is worth an opinion, because it is going to create havoc inside you. Otherwise stay non opinionated and stress free.
For this to happen the biggest change needed is not to read everything, not to keep feeding your mind with junk. In today's world this is the biggest challenge, not to take everything presented to you wether it be junk food or junk ideas. Do we need it? Is someone asking us to have an opinion? Your quality of mind and happiness is directly related to how many opinions and how many new opinions per day you have forced yourself to update.
Offshoot of this shift in lifestyle will be - how to be still seen as an intellectual and informed person without having an opinion? There are a lot of people with lot of junk in their own minds ready to download on you, no one really is listening for others opinion so you don't have to worry. Just listen to everyone and ask questions about what is going on in their head but don't form any opinion just listen for fun. Another exercise is just like junk food just look at the ideas don't click on it. Take in the headlines like a civil war going in Syria. Do you think you are going to affect that war? If you are going to act on it in anyway, then get involved otherwise don't read about 1000 things bombarded to you about it. Beyond the headlines it is not news it is gossip and junk for the mind hooked upon junk. Keep it clean empty and happy.
