Just saw a friend's Facebook status that read: "Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong."
This made me roll with laughter, especially since this friend of mine is very intellectual (read: nerdy. But in a good way). He's the kind of person who has an internal need to be Absolutely Right. I can very easily picture the humiliation and complete irritation he would experience in such a situation: a teeth-clenching, fingers-digging-into-the-table, suppressing-the-urge-to-call-the-opponent-a-Nazi-and-be-done-with-it sort of feeling.
And I can totally empathize with him. I love debates (though mine might technically be called "discussions" as the setting is much more relaxed). However, unless I have adequate time to rationally internalize the argument, my points tend to come off as more of a scattered rant than a structured argument. I'm just a tad too emotional. In other words, I generally tend to lose to the cool-headed intellectual types. And it really. Freaking. Sucks.
[Digressing rant: After all, people rarely debate to actually exchange ideas. That's just a cover. More often than not, debating seems to simply be an ego parade. The prize is, of course, bragging rights-- the title of intellectual superiority. See also: Chess. And Mensa, for that matter.]
Obviously, it's not pleasant to come out on the losing end of a debate with the label "intellectually inferior" slapped across your forehead. Especially when, halfway through, you realize that your argument is not only fundamentally flawed but /just plain wrong/, and that from now on, you can only attempt to bail bucketfuls of water out of a ship that is halfway to Davy Jones' locker. All the while knowing that /you're the one who gouged the hole in the boat in the first place/! Talk about embarrassing...
In many ways, I agree with my friend's statement. Yet upon second reading, the fact that he described it as the worst feeling in the world disturbed me. Yeah, okay, I understand it's just a status, and that people exaggerate all the time (I'm often guilty of this; just take a look at the last couple of paragraphs)... but I get the feeling that this kid really meant it. And that saddens me. Sure, it wounds the ego to be proven wrong... but, honestly, I think we could all stand to deflate our egos a bit. Sometimes-- and I hesitate to say this, as it smells vaguely of rainbow optimism-- I think we learn more from being proven wrong than right. That sort of situation develops character and, hopefully, humility. It reminds us that others' opinions can be valid too. Sure, it'd be great to be right all the time, but we're human. It's impossible to have all the answers.
That beautiful passage at the end of the book of Job comes to mind. Luckily, we don't /have/ to have all the answers. We just have to have faith in the One who does.
In loose association, I've been in bed with the flu for the past couple of days. During the moments when my brain did /not/ feel like syrup, I read random online articles on my iPod to pass the time. Morbid, nightmare-inducing ones about strange illnesses and brutal crimes. It wasn't until several hours later that I realized what a horrible mistake this was. Last night I had a recurring dream /four times/ in which everyone I knew came down with a horribly fatal illness. By stroke of luck, my dream-self managed to discover a cure right before the End, and promptly gave it to my fellow diseased. They all died anyway-- except, by cruel fate of dreaming design, myself. I was left alone, eyes twitching, wondering whether my "cure" would have restored them if they had only received it sooner, or if it had in fact actually killed them. (In some versions of the dream, I had tested the cure on myself several hours before I could administer it on others, and this time gap was supposedly the reason I lived while the others died. In other versions, I only theorized that the cure would work, and due to limited supplies, sacrificially administered my own dose to someone else-- and thus by cruel twist of irony became guilty of accidental murder. Note the similarities to the previously posted dream.)
This is still related, honest! (Now you see why I'm not a particularly good debator.) Anyway, the point of that story, other than to get those nasty dreams off my chest, is to introduce the feeling of the inevitability of death that's been coloring my thoughts all day.
[Another digression: You know the side effects listed in drug commercials that always seem worse than whatever the drug is actually supposed to cure? It always cracks me up a little when one of the side effects is 'increased risk of death': "Awww, crap. Now I have a 110% chance of death!]
Fever tends to make everything seem more melodramatic than it really is. In any case, this paranoia will probably wear off once I'm no longer sick, but it /is/ incredibly odd to think that one day, I'll cease to exist in an earthly sense. If my life was a book, it would be going and going-- a tedious novel full of insignificant and misleading subplots that never really develop into anything-- and then, suddenly, it would stop. In mid-sentence. Just like that. And no one would know the real ending until their own story was over and they were no longer subject to the bonds of chronological narration or earthly existence themselves. And to think that my story might be meaningless upon re-reading. It's mind-warping. Sure, the real ending would ultimately redeem it... yet, call me selfish if you want, but I'd like to give back a little first. Or, rather, pass on some of what's already been given to me (somewhat like a dam letting water pass through it). I don't want to just /go/; I want to do something Important first. I want to die with purpose.
And so (returning to the original topic), in light of this frame of mind, it seemed to me abundantly clear how the status would have read in an alternate universe:
"Nothing sucks more than that moment before death when you realize that your entire life was pointless."