Passion.

I need to get this off my chest. I so wanted to post this on Wednesday, but I decided to let my thoughts gather a bit more first before letting it off and make myself look like an idiot.

My question is: “What is passion?” – and of course I’m talking in football’s sense.

Some would say “cheering for the team throughout the match, showing delight when the team scores, encourage the players when they fall behind” is passion.

And then some would say “cheer when the team scores, screw them when they concede, haul abuse at them when they play badly, and demand an apology when they lose” is passion.

As I’m not someone who have studied a lot, and definitely am not an expert in language, I decided to look up the dictionary and search for the meaning of the word “passion”. Oxford dictionary returned “strong and barely controllable emotion”; while Merriam-Webster returned “ardent affection, a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept”. Both seemed to suggest that there is an element of love being involved in passion. I won’t pass my comment as to which of the above two cases is a display of passion, but I’ll leave you to judge.

For me, I’m a subscriber to the first logic. Many football spectators in Hong Kong, clearly seemed to be a believer of the second logic though. I’m not saying they are wrong, because we all have our own freedom of speech and thoughts, and I’m in no way interested to change their opinions (partly because they are not willing to change anyway). But it’s just that sometimes I do get a bit peeved when people say that I’m wrong because I subscribe to the first logic. I mean, this is what I believe in, and if you can’t agree with it, simply get on with your own life and stop trying to tell me that I’m wrong.

I’ve actually grown sick of trying to voice my opinion of supporting the team through thick and thin because many Hong Kong football fans simply don’t buy that theory. They always believe that since they paid for the tickets, they are entitled to say anything they like, which include hurling abuse at their own players. They also believe that if they do not hurl those abuses, the players will never wake up and they will continue badly. They feel that blindly supporting the team hurts the team because the players will be led to believe that no matter how badly they play they will always be loved. It’s almost like the players owe them a living and honestly, I have had enough of that bollocks and I am not going to say anything about that further.

Anyway, football is not my main point for this post. With the popularity of Facebook, differences in opinions escalate to become full-blown war of words so easily. In the past people would stop to think, now they just stop thinking. It’s so easy to shoot your mouths off and not even bother whether the words they say would have any effect at all. In my opinion, differences in opinions are more than natural. And I don’t think that is a bad thing. But it becomes a bad thing when people try to influence others to change their opinions, sometimes resorting to abuses and fights. I mean, must we all be so insistent that everyone must think the same way? Can’t we even allow people to think differently? Sometimes I think, I have my opinion, I’ve stated it, and that’s it. Whether you accept or not is completely not my problem. If you get it and decide to change your opinion because of that, then great. But if you decide to uphold your own views, that’s not an issue with me either. But why must you accuse me for having a different opinion and say that I’m this or I’m that? Over the Internet, this becomes a problem. Because it is so easy to just post your opinion, if people have a thought, they will post it without even considering. And when everyone does the same thing, opinion differences quickly become war of words because I would say that you are uttering rubbish, and you will say that I am saying the most outrageous thing in the world. And if one side decides to take a step back and say “alright, I’m not arguing further”, the other side, instead of backing down too, tend to step up their efforts and trying to pose a winner stance. I don’t think that helps.

This kind of arguments are usually most apparent when people are arguing on their beliefs. Just like the case of the football supporters, when both sides have different opinions, they do not just state them. They would also try to say how unreasonable or stupid the other side is, and that is a recipe of a fight. In my opinion, stating your opinion is fine, but let’s just stay there. Don’t go further than stating your own view. You don’t have to put the other person down just to show that you are good. If you are good, your views alone would make them think. And if you must say something bad about the other side’s views, at least do it politely? Instead of saying “you are an idiot for thinking like that”, can we say something nicer? One of my friends in university used to tell me “If you can’t say anything nice, it’s better not to say anything at all”, and I think that is so true. I mean, must I hurl an abuse at you to show that I think you are stupid? I know this sounds so wrong, but this just show how absurd I think the whole thing is.  Arguments based on beliefs are never going to end up having a “winner”, instead people get hurt because in the process, words that were never meant to be said usually would come out, and those are the ones that usually hurt or destroy relationships.

Alright, nuff of my nonsense.