Essay: THE BEAUTY OF BEING INSULTED

Dai Nguyen

May 24, 2021

Holistic Science

The beauty of being insulted

Three years ago, I started reading about Quantum Physics. Schrödinger’s cat experiment shows me that an object could exist in different states simultaneously. This leads me to question whether there would be any “truth” in the world as everything could be right or wrong or right and wrong at the same time. What is considered the truth for one person might not be the truth for others. 

We are living in a world where we try to define everything. The world of definitions. Humiliation or being insulted comes with negative connotations. We feel angry, sad, or disappointed when being insulted. There have been occasions when telling the truth or what one thinks hurts the other’s feelings. We use our reasoning to find the “truth.” And if the purpose of reasoning is to come up with the right judgments, why do we tend to disagree and argue over the supposedly defined “good”? Why is it so difficult to reach a consensus nowadays? Why do people believe that being insulted is bad and is it necessary to apologize for telling the truth? 

I find being insulted a beautiful thing. It makes me think. I could be sad but at the same time, I am happy that something could make me feel that sad. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel that sad is if I felt something really good before. It reminds me of the diversity of this world. Every person has an ecosystem within themselves. If we have to put every single experience that a person has lived in their life together and how it shapes their worldview, we could have endless scenarios. If we want to create an understanding environment to nurture the relationship between individuals, we have to put all of the factors and experiences that happened during their lives into consideration. I believe it’s impossible to obtain “wholeness” or to understand something completely – we could learn about the brain but it is difficult to learn about the mind. We could learn about facial expressions, the gestures but we could never understand what the other is thinking unless they convey it. 

Living in the world of logic, there’s always been an urge to reach conclusions so that we could take further actions. Conclusions are drawn from reasoning, yet are framed by assumptions. Being insulted is the result and further action is an apology. The moment I feel humiliated, I lose a piece of my self-pride. I do not feel better when getting an apology after being insulted. Still, why do I want that?

It would be ideal to live in a world without “forced communications.” Silence is beautiful. Explanations could be good but unnecessary. When misunderstanding in communications happens, we need explanations from others to merely confirm our thoughts – confirmation bias. When it comes to communications, it’s not our mind that functions alone – communications create a web of connections that affect our judgments and the way we reason. With the same content, we might feel less insulted if it is spoken by a stranger than by someone we know. Personal reasoning is eventually a “group activity.” Reasoning helps us build connections, collaborate, and socialize; it also makes us overthink and generates more problems.

There are several ways to extend our brain capability. What about expanding our empathy?  

No relationship has zero misunderstandings. Then how to achieve collaborations on an international scale? The first step is to accept the complexity and not try to fix it but instead, learn how to live with complexity and uncertainty. Someday we will be ancient but we can choose what our history should look like.