Please Excuse My Opinions

I have a confession to make: I like pineapple on pizza. This is a polarizing opinion to have, even if it has been an internet meme for a while. The reaction I receive whenever I say this is usually one of shock, incredulity, and occasionally disgust, especially around a group of people who feel differently. Of course, anyone who dislikes pineapple on pizza is very clearly wrong, by default has terrible taste and lacks any credibility on culinary matters.

That's just my opinion, anyway.

Ok, so I don't really think that anyone who doesn't prefer pineapple on pizza isn't worthy of being in a kitchen. I'm using pineapple pizza as a stand-in for the broader social and cultural issues I think we're all familiar with that cause so much polarization and discord in society. Even if you live under a rock and have no idea what the deal is with Covid-19 vaccines or the Black Lives Matter protests, or any of the bazillion things we fight about in the public sphere, we all experience conflict due to differing opinions in the course of our daily lives.

Opinions are interesting because what we call opinions are usually just sentiments in disguise. Distinguishing between the two is possibly the most important skill when interacting with other people, especially when applied to our spiritual relationships.

But what exactly is the difference between an opinion and a sentiment? How do we tell them apart, and why is it so important that we do?

Bear with me now because I'm going to get a little metaphysical. In the spectrum from facts to feelings (purely objective to purely subjective), all of our thoughts sit somewhere in the middle. In a nutshell, sentiments are thoughts with a larger influence from the senses, whereas opinions are thoughts with a larger basis in the intellect.

Our mind is the center of our thoughts, which come with all their likes and dislikes, knowledge and experiences. The more informed these thoughts are towards desires (our likes and dislikes) or intellect (our knowledge and experience) determines their nature. The more our thoughts lean towards our likes and dislikes, the more they can be characterized as sentiments. The more they lean towards our knowledge and experiences, the more they are opinions.

I want to clarify here that I'm not trying to say that opinions are better than sentiments because they're more informed by knowledge. That's not the case! It's not that my preference for eating pineapple pizza is stupid - it's merely that the thought "This tastes good" is more informed by my liking for pineapples on pizza than the logical, more rational reasons pineapple belongs on a pie.

The idea that humans are irrational isn't new, and neither is the observation that human beings are predictably irrational. The whole field of behavioral economics is centered around this insight, which is also why I use the word sentiment. I use sentiment because it gives a stronger dose of feeling than the word belief and is not wholly irrational as the word emotion implies.

Another way I could phrase this difference is the distinction between opinion and informed opinion: they're effectively the same initial thing; one merely has more rationality applied to it, the other more desire. Having this mental model in place helps to understand people's internal state behind their statements.

I've written before about how relationships are like the roots of a plant, which are nourished by the water of our internal worlds. When I first introduced this concept, I used it to illustrate how we could connect with ourselves on a deeper level, but it is also extremely applicable to our relationships with others.

Relationships are defined by what is put in the space between them. The practical manifestations of this are how we spend our time together, what we speak about, and the intention with which we approach the relationship. I know people from work: we only spend time together at work, mostly talk about work, and have little intention of expanding our relationship beyond work. Our jobs are the only water being poured on the roots of this relationship, and consequently, it won't grow past our interactions at the office.

Sharing our internal worlds with others sounds very nice, but we don't all think alike. Certainly, we're going to have different likes and dislikes, different areas of expertise, and different life experiences. This all means that we'll think differently about the same topics, and this is where conflict shows up. Being able to tolerate differences in opinions is what enables a relationship to flourish.

This is important when at our jobs, with our families, and with the people we meet, but especially when around spiritual practitioners. We won't be able to understand and experience these people's internal world if we get hung up on the conflicts that inevitably will result if we remain at the surface level. If we're interested in going deeper in our own spiritual practice, making the effort to relate to other people on a deeper, more spiritual level is how we find inspiration to dig deeper within ourselves.

But how exactly do we relate on that deeper level? We need to develop the intelligence to distinguish between someone's opinions and their sentiments, which can be done by:

• Taking the time to learn what they value (simple yet highly effective)
• Asking about their feelings (you'd be shocked how often people feel a certain way about something and can't explain why!)
• Not criticizing someone you don't know personally (my rule of thumb is if I haven't shared a meal with them recently, I won't criticize them)
• Assume the best of others (being charitable when attempting to explain someone's seemingly hurtful interactions)

When we do these things, we can see that people usually react to what happens based on their own experiences and values. Understanding this helps to put yourself in the other person's shoes and communicate more effectively with them. It's not bad that my friends don't see the appeal of pineapple pizza; we just have different experiences, preferences, and value systems.

One final disclaimer here: I'm not perfect! I still have conflicts in life, but I've found that making a concerted effort to apply these techniques helps immensely.

Happy that I'm able to eat pineapple pizza in peace,
-Sid