La Vie En Route

Changing in a world that dislikes change.

Several years ago, someone I followed on the internet did something to bother me. They had expressed a very strong opinion on a political issue and then out of nowhere, they changed their position. That in itself is nothing new. What was bothersome to me is that the person never admitted they changed their mind. In fact, they went as far as saying they never had the prior opinion. It drove me crazy because they never wanted to say that he was wrong or that he changed his mind. Instead, they tried to maintain an illusion that the opinion they expressed now was the one they always had.

While this person’s willingness to hide their “evolution” on a position was annoying to me, I also understood it as I faced making a change in my own life.

I recently started a podcast. I wanted it to be mainly about politics and religion and I immediately came up with the name “Polite Company.” I went with it and I used the name for the first few episodes.

But it didn’t feel right. I would start the podcast saying that this was about the things you couldn’t say in polite company. But the reality is that we do talk about politics and religion in polite company. Also, when I tried to describe the podcast, I just couldn’t.