Opinions Held

27 Feb 2023

I think the idea of "Strong Opinions, Weakly Held", as it is commonly received, is a terrible concept. Another word for "strong opinion" is "a belief". Beliefs should be required to have costs associated with them. "Weakly held" implies to me that you create beliefs absent any costs.

In my view, beliefs are strongly held. They are created based on impactful lived experiences. These beliefs that I have, have come at great personal cost to me in blood, sweat, and tears. I don't know about others, but I do not take lightly to having my lived experience "weakly held" and brushed aside easily.

Weak opinions, weakly held sounds entirely plausible to me. That sounds like brainstorming or doing some hand-wavey "napkin math. Yes, you better hold those very weakly. You spent as little time as possible coming up with the opinion. When someone else comes along, having done more work, you should probably perk up and listen to what they've got.

We don't want to hold on to our beliefs because they are simply ours. But rather because we know why we believe them, how they got created, and how are they working for us. Does our most recent experience comport with our established beliefs?