Welcome.

To have an opinion or not to have one. There are really so many dilemmas in life, if you have an opinion, you risk conforming to some set perspective, to be permanently prejudiced. On the other hand, not having an opinion just shows how one is wishy-washy, and it is really much less interesting if you don't have an opinion. Not having an opinion allows one to remain a sponge, to absorb all the information that is available.

I realise that I am really like that, I really don't have many opinions. Thinking about it, when Mariel asked me about how I thought of my time in council and stuff related to that, I was sort of making up opinions on the go, though they were still based on the information that I had.

When people have strong opinions, I feel as though I am inclined to accept those, especially if they are close friends. In fact, I end up impressed by them more than anything. It could be that I hate to judge things, which could be a good thing in the eyes of some, but it really that seems like a bad thing. Judging things or events accurately could make all the difference between success and failure.

Maybe it is best to form your own opinions and to keep an open mind to new ideas or information. Say if for some reason you detest some guy, you gotta know the exact reason why. Then if the person does something nice or good, you must be able to overcome your prejudice to change your opinion of people. Some say that a leopard never changes his spot, but most of our opinions are formed based on our judgment, or even those of others. So what if our judgment is wrong in the first place?

We should also consider how our opinions are formed. One of my dad's favorite topic seems to be how Singaporeans sometimes look down on Malaysians, saying how it is not safe there, people are corrupted there etc, AND therefore we should not go there. How much do we really know about this to judge things, to come to that conclusion? I don't believe that we would know what kind of crimes are prevalent there, or where it is concentrated. We won't even know how corruption would affect us, the common tourist, directly.

It seems that sometimes we take the opinions of some people and consider them sacred, consciously or not, then we make those opinions ours. I think in that case, seeing things and making judgments on your own is more important than anything.