I used to hate reading a text when someone would write with qualifying language (this was also prevalent in how many people I looked up to spoke). Why couldn’t they just go ahead and say the thing that they wanted to say? Why did their have to be language such as “this suggests” or “I can’t say for sure”? It would drive me insane because I believed that writing that made an impact doesn’t need this extra baggage surrounding statements.

If I ask many people, I can probably get one person to admit that they believe in something that isn’t strictly speaking scientific. It could be large parts of our universe, such as the existence of an afterlife or a soul, or it could be smaller things such as our horoscopes actually telling us information about ourselves. There are many beliefs that humans have, and it isn’t uncommon to find someone harbouring at least one of these beliefs.

Imagine you lived in a place where you couldn’t say anything to contradict the person who somehow gained power in that region. What if you couldn’t even question something that they said which was plainly wrong? What if the consequence of questioning resulted in you being punished, either physically or mentally?

If I were to describe you in one word, there’s a fair chance that you would take issue with what I say. It’s not that I’m inherently mean or that I’ll offend you. Instead, the problem is that one word is not enough. One paragraph or even one page isn’t enough. In reality, it would take a lot of words to describe you as a person in a way that you would be satisfied with. Likewise, I’m sure that you’d notice if someone were to describe you with a term that you feel doesn’t fully capture you as a person.