Changing My Mind
March 16 2025
It’s hard
to remember the last time
my mind was changed.
It’s not like oil, after all,
or swapping out the winter tires.
Or as if I had a closet
with shelves full of matching heads
with rictus smiles
lined up ear-to-ear.
As convenient
as a wardrobe of pants
draped neatly on their hangers;
simply pop a new one on
as I would a fresh pair.
If only it was easy as that.
If only change wasn’t so hard
and changing minds even harder.
Even worse
we tend to double down,
get oversensitive,
argumentative,
stubbornly defensive;
especially
when one’s sense of self
feels under threat.
But a strange thing is happening.
The certitude of youth
when I knew everything
and self-righteousness burned bright in me
is giving way to doubt,
a willingness
to question the shibboleths
revisit the certainties.
It’s as if, if you live long enough
the atheist becomes agnostic
and free love turns to faithfulness
as naturally
as bald heads and bad hips.
So as I age
while more set in my ways
I’m more supple of mind.
Or perhaps just more humble
after so much time
in which to be wrong.
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