⇥ On being human

If I had to pick a “best sentence of 2010,” it would be this little tidbit:

I do like and have tried to champion OpenSource software. How can I square that with my love of Apple? I’m complicated. I’m a human being. I also believe in a mixed economy and mixed nuts. I love our National Health Service and the National Theatre, but I also love Fortnum and Mason’s and Hollywood movies.

It comes, of all places, from a piece that Stephen Fry wrote on January 28th, in occasion of the launch of the original iPad. If I had to pick a “best reason why I admire Stephen Fry,” by the way, this sentence would encompass it precisely as well.

The reason I love this short paragraph is not that it has to do with Apple, or the iPad, or open-source software. Rather, it’s the fact that it’s an honest admission that being human means dealing with a never-ending supply of conflicting feelings, contradictory ideas, and seemingly irreconcilable realities.

The real trick in life is not to reach absolute conviction, but, rather, to process all your inputs, distill what you can learn from them, discard that which is unhelpful, and formulate a personal philosophy with the knowledge that it will become a living, ever-changing thing.

It’s an amazingly difficult thing to do, which is probably why so many people prefer to adhere to One Real Truth instead. People who do that without ever questioning themselves or their beliefs frighten me if they are in charge, disgust me if they are trying to sell something, and make me sick if they just do it to feel part of a group.