The conversation started with electoral choices and then turned to how to make somebody with strong feelings in any direction in order to see a reason. Is there a rational path to it? Can you argue with emotions? The straight answer is no, but…

There is a beautiful quote by Friedrich Nietzsche “Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.”. The question is how these two types communicate. And I don’t mean how to get to the bank. Even then, one could direct you to pass thru a wonderful garden on your way and the other — the shortest way thru a highly polluted part of the city. There is no right and wrong here, it depends on the context, if you need money to save somebody’s life would be different if you need just to deposit a small check. I’m mostly an inquirer and I’ve been called a robot by an ex-partner of mine. I was not offended because that was simply her inability to create a rational argument, so her frustration had to go somewhere. I understand the anger of powerlessness, it’s like you try to do something physical and you feel that it’s not impossible, but after so many failed attempts you quit, left with rage due to the adrenaline rush. The systematic rational approach gives you more predictability which feels safe and more things seem achievable. At the same time robs you of the joy of impulsiveness and improvisation — follow your guts/heart way. Probably there is a middle ground somewhere, which would take a lifetime to find and after that it’s pointless.

When somebody has a strong emotional connection to an idea to a degree that they consider this to be part of their identity, any attempt to even discuss that idea is considered an intrusion to their core self. The fact that you cannot attack from a rational standpoint somebody’s core beliefs does not mean all communications upon the matter are doomed. Your approach needs to be much more sublime, under the radar.

The first thing to do is to understand their feeling and attempt to speak the language of said feelings. Ideas born from feelings are always controversial, once you are inside the terminology and have some knowledge of the controversies, you can create an argument within the other person’s intuition. It is not the easiest thing to do but at least that is a communication starter.

Second, try to understand the origin of these beliefs (parents, teachers, peers, etc) most probably there is some love/hate relationship somewhere. Talk about that …

Third, create an illusion of a middle ground. You certainly have had similar feelings or experiences at some point in your life. Talk about these experiences, dive into them, but most importantly show that you are vulnerable (broken even) and count on their empathy.

You cannot argue with someone with a position driven by emotions, to make him/her see a reason. The only feasible thing to do is to establish some communication and keep that communication channel open long enough to share some experiences, thoughts, and maybe morals.

My first thought if somebody asked me about the meaning of life is that I don’t understand the question. Why does life suppose to have meaning? The question is more a declaration of a need for purpose and less a real curiosity about my life goals.

The traditional term meaning is used to mark a functionality of something in a broader context, like the meaning of a word, ergo, the meaning is contextual. What is the context of the meaning of life, a society, or a group we strongly feel we belong to, a civilization, the human species… Nobody cares to tell you or that is part of the question. We have to find first which context is of most importance to us and then look for the meaning of our life in this context. Let’s pick for the sake of argument — 21st-century Western civilization. In this case, the meaning of my life would be how significant is my existence for Western civilization, shared core values, my contributions to said civilization, etc. Even I can formulate how much my life is (or I would like to be) in harmony with the Western civilization, there is an argument that contributing to civilization is done better if you overstep (extend) its boundaries, so… There is no divine plan which my life is supposed to be a part of and defines the purpose of it. What can say I’m a scientist and hence I’m not in a business of meaning, that is covered by religions, ideologies and some philosophical teachings.

Now back to: if somebody asks you about the meaning of life, you have three options 1. ask for a context (there is no such thing as the meaning of life in general), 2. say life is meaningless mostly because you don’t need meaning in order to live a satisfying life (even the opposite if the life has a meaning you would feel confined by it), 3. as a compromise, say that everybody finds or makes their own meaning every single day of their lives. I don’t recall who said it beautifully: the meaning of life is that I wake up every morning.

PS if I get a pet I will call it “meaning of life”. Looking for “meaning of life”, taking care of “meaning of life”, getting cosy with “meaning of life”, all that will elevate the natural ambiguity of my mode of speech to a new level …nice!

Imagine God gets down on earth. I’m not talking about any particular god, any omnipotent diety will do. Here are the stages of the society reaction:

First — denial. There have been a lot of claims of people being a messiah or even a god and if they are too persistent, a psychiatric ambulance would be on its way. Apart from a million questions, any person may have, what would happen to the faith. Can you have faith in something real (Credo quia absurdum.)? If you know something for real it’s just knowledge, not faith, isn’t it? That is not right, that simply CAN NOT be!

Second — anger. Then the supreme being provided with some proof for being supreme, traditionally — some spectacular miracles. The religious people are furious about the mismatch between their expectations and the real McCoy (God). For millennia people constructed their lives around their presumptions about God, including their core values, social structure, the legal system, etc. An order of the things which makes sense and everything has a meaning (not obvious, but it has). And all of a sudden here is the origin of all that wisdom saying that your holy book(s) is full of errata, mistranslations, and out of context and purposely misleading interpretations. Which sane mortal will be ok with sacrificing his/her life for an obvious lie. At the end of the day, who is more likely to be wrong: one being (even divine) or billions of people, …you know the answer. Ooh, the rage…

Third — bargaining. After a lot of steam is released, some people decided that they can find some sort of middle ground and in the process find a new position for themselves as new messiahs (…or something). If the deity is undeniably here, what can we do to profit from the situation? It does not matter if it’s a new religion or simply “Reformed church of (put your deity name here)”. Maybe Lord would like to spread the right words around the world and hence the need for an enormous amount of PR? That is if the free will clause is still valid. If — not, is there anything at all the deity wishes (being omni-everything)? The quest for a good bargain is endless.

Forth — depression. The deity doesn’t seem to have material needs or at least not in the form we can understand. Is a painting material thing, what about a song or a poem or a thought. They have material carriers but the essence is cultural, spiritual, intellectual. As a result of that, the bargaining isn’t going very well. Most of us live in a material world and any appeal to originality or inner beauty is greatly confusing and mostly depressing. How to satisfy God which wants you to be unique, jump into your death from a place nobody jumped before?

Fifth — acceptance. After several generations, God is old news, part of our ever-expanding view of nature. If his/her holiness is here and although he/she does things we cannot explain (for now), it is natural (not supernatural). The mystery is gone and most people are eager to find new god(s) which words they can interpret whichever way they like. God is declared “dead” one more time.

PS I don’t think that any religious person with just a grain of rationality about their God would like to meet Him/Her (besides in the afterlife I mean).

Revolutions are ironic (among many other things). They are supposed to change a corrupt and unfair system into something just and beautiful. History, however, shows that the relationships in society stay the same, only the power players exchange places. Take the French revolution, after centuries of aristocracy doing whatever they wish to the plebs, during the revolution the plebs did to the aristocracy just the same without the style. The Bolshevik revolution was in many ways worse, the sheer number of killed by the Bolshevic was astonishing (tens of millions). The same centralized system has been established after the October revolution, but much more oppressive. Were the Bolshevic party leaders worse than the czar, Lenin — maybe, Stalin — ooh yes, …and then comes Mao, Kim dynasty, etc. So why if history repeats itself so many times, the revolutions still fascinate the public imagination. Even some may argue that the recent rise of populism is the closest to a revolution we can get nowadays without overturning the economy boat. The universal, cynical, and not very informative answer is: people are miserable (and stupid) and they would never admit that the misery is coming from their own actions, so it must be the system. Still, there is something deeper for so many different people and cultures to do the same self-destructive act. It bottles down to a lack of understanding as well but in a different way.

For many revolutionaries, the revolution is just their way to power. A smart politician wouldn’t offer a solution for people’s problems but channel their frustration and anger into something easily recognizable (race, wealth, etc) so they let him/her lead. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people who honestly believe that a revolution will better everybody’s life because of a very common bias. They deeply believe that people are by nature whatever revolutionaries consider being right and just. If you read early anarchists (Kropotkin) you would be astonished at how naive are his assumptions about how people will behave after being liberated (after the event). So if everybody has this righteousness deep inside them why do they behave in the way they do and that is definitively not the right way. The only sensible answer is — the SYSTEM (whatever that means). The system enslaves people in so many ways that they are not themselves anymore. The solution is obvious — back to the authentic human roots: reset/destroy/revolutionize the system, so the people will be liberated to become their natural selves. Beautiful, people are so beautiful inside (if look deep enough) that after their liberation that beauty will save and elevate us all. Well, …maybe there are some “technical problems” along the way to this paradise on earth. Like exterminating a percentage of the population which do not agree to sacrifice themselves for a brighter future.

You have something to say. Here are some simple tips (unprovable and disorganized):

• Have something to say. Rhetoric exercises could be fun for a while, but having an original thought or convincing idea supported by good reasoning is better.
• Be personal. Except in scientific papers, avoid passive voice. Use “I” and “you” as much as possible. Engage the reader as you are talking to him/her face to face.
• Be honest. Relax your attempt to be in control and be frank. The truth is too much to ask for (except under oath), but honesty is recognizable and allows you to share your journey, your struggle. The feeling is good on both sides.
• Some humour is good but tricky, …the right places, the right flavour, but when it is good, it is great. Not taking your subject (including yourself) too seriously is relaxing for the readers and that relaxation makes them more susceptible to your message. And do not forget: humour is the only way your wisdom can be forgiven.
• An element of surprise. It could be a paradox, a contradiction, a play of words, an ambivalent statement, something to engage the reader’s mind to understand the game. There is no game, the only game is engagement. You believe that all the paradoxes and ambivalency are reflections of the contradictory and messy world, and on a very rare occasion they are, but mostly they are attention control.
• Most importantly — tell a story. Humans think in stories (Yuval Harari), that’s our way to empathize, to remember, to believe, to belong. Your narrative could only resemble a story (an illusion of a story), just to make your words relatable. From talking things in fairy tales to allegories, and archetypes, anything to help the reader fantasize some context of what you are saying …and that’s how we create meaning.
  PS Any exceptions from the stated above guidelines will be accepted if they are artful enough.