My younger self believed that you could change people's minds with logical arguments. With age and wisdom, I do not believe this to be true anymore. There are of course people who can be rationally convinced to change their minds. You can see it happening in real time. Because I see it so rarely, I find it a bit unbelievable when it happens. It's a bit like when a person can't see and you switch on the lights. They can see now. It makes you happy too. But there is the other situation where the person is blind. No amount of turning on the lights or increasing the glare is going to help. They will not see because they lack vision. It's got nothing to do with light.

In a way I have become a lot more resigned towards the latter group of people. I don't make it my responsibility to convince people of anything anymore. I feel a lot lighter. I also hold the possibility of being wrong myself a bit more consciously. It's one thing to be wrong but at least I am not converting anybody. I want to be proved wrong if I am­­—with logic and evidence of course. A few people who know me sometimes tell me "jokingly" that I always seem to be right. But if I ask them to show me how I am wrong, in what instance, in what way, etc, they backtrack. They are not the ones who can turn on the light for me and they know it.

I make a distinction between those who are self-aware about their limited vision and those who lack even that reflexive capacity. With the self-aware there is an openness to the fact that they might not really be able to see quite that far though they are trying. It's like the blind man who goes to the doctor to check their sight and get help. They want to overcome the limitation. Their honesty inclines me to make an effort with them. The non-self-aware are smug in their ignorance because they do not even have the reflexive capacity to diagnose it as such. They can't be helped because they do not believe they need it. The conclusion I have come to is that it's best to leave them to their devices. The consequences are bound to catch up eventually. Whether they are able to recognize them for what they are, your guess is as good as mine.