Surfing the Internet, you are bound to find tons of people who rant. And then there are those who rant about people who rant. Some even do this in most eloquent ways. And I can see why people rant. I wear my heart on my sleeve, so I say things at times which aren’t exactly useful.
If ranting helps, to get rid of things, then I guess it has a purpose, but often people don’t seem to talk things off their chest. They aren’t looking for a dialogue either. They just like to rant.
They enjoy picking on that one moment when someone said something, in a way that could be misunderstood. But context is everything and people that are able to see the larger context can get over things much more easily.
To give an example: A few months ago, I started to write an article about Minimalism. I would not call it a rant, but I read an interview with Lea Babauta explaining minimalism that nagged at me. It said:
“I should say a word or two about having six kids and minimalism. Having six children is inconsistent with my message of simplifying, frugality, downsizing, being green. I don’t have a defense – but I do have an explanation for the inconsistency. I had my kids before (and during) my change in philosophy.”
The entire article made my jaw drop. As this was one of the first articles, I read about Minimalism it set the wrong stage for me. Yet the more I learned about minimalism, the more differentiated my views became. In life things just aren’t black and white. There are many nuances.
Many different ways to look at things. We all interpret information in a slightly different manner. Making communication one of the most difficult things on earth. We never truly know how our message got across. The power of words, so easily misunderstood.
That’s why I love a good dialogue. A dialogue gives the opportunity to rectify and adjust the message, to understand where the other person is coming from, to see things through a different lens.
If we all just keep talking and being tolerant towards varying ideas and ways of living, we’ll need to rant so much less. So much less that perhaps it gets boring again :-) Then we can rant about people not ranting enough.
Oh wait, someone already did that :) Here’s a lovely post from the Canadian comedian Rick Mercer on why we should rant.
