The Whet

Broadly, it doesn't. I grew up in an environment replete with the backlash of WWII parenting; those kids weren't told that what they thought mattered, they were just supposed to do well with the victory their parents had secured for them, all tangible assets and corporate ladders. They rebelled in large part by telling their children in turn that hard cash and corner offices weren't nearly as important as that universal flaky abstract, their thoughts. Or I don't know, maybe that's just a California thing. In any case, people have been telling me that what I think is important ever since I was old enough to listen. I knew it was poppycock then, and I know it now, but somehow as an adult it's much harder to resist that knee-jerk, first pass notion that I should, that I have to, say what's on my mind. Worse still, when that should gets rejected, often enough I double down rather than step back on the importance, as though being principled can be supplanted by being defiant. I propose a review of when one's thoughts matter.

1. The person you're speaking with tells you so. It's a blessing, when it comes, though its rarity is also to be savored, for imagine if you had to hear the words spoken for every instance in which the other party gave a shit about what you thought --you'd probably spend more time exchanging expressions of interest than actually talking about anything. Especially dangerous here is the fact that that familiarity easily breeds contempt. Just because someone has expressed interest in what you think in the past doesn't mean they're interested perpetually, or in all matters great and small. Likewise, love is not some sort of seal of interest to be placed over all the comings and goings of a beloved's thoughts (though that may be a reasonable description of infatuation); it is unwise to take for granted the evenly distributed interest of someone who loves you --at least, if you love them back. Enjoy those rare occurrences when someone tells you they'd like to know what you think, and don't abuse it¹.

2. You're an expert on the matter at hand. Honestly I shudder to include this for knowing how often, and how profoundly, the notion of an expert is misused. It's tossed around as a weak justification for all manner of agendas and shoddy efforts --in fact, it's a major reason why knowing whether what you think matters has gotten so difficult in the first place, because everyone's gotta be an expert in something (or know someone who is, which is practically the same thing, right? Fuck.). Let's set some basic rules in an attempt to recover a little ground from the chaos:
2.a Having experience does not make you an expert². It makes you someone with some experience, which is not at all the same thing, and is not at all relevant when attempting to understand if what you think about something matters.
2.b Familiarity is not expertise. So you've read something about a topic, or you've heard about it before, or you took a related class in college. Good for you, you're not an expert.
2.c Feeling very strongly about something has nothing to do with being an expert. Even if that something is having very strong feelings. Confusing emotion for thought, and strength of emotion for relevance, is the hallmark of immaturity. It's over-tolerated amongst the general population, but it'll mark you as an exemplary idiot if you pull it out with cultivated people, and that's a very hard mark to wash off.
2.d Your certifications of expertise are meaningless. You probably paid a lot for them, and you probably put a fair amount of time and sweat into them, too. Sadly the current global delusion of self-importance has led to an abundance of fraudulent certification not seen since the dark ages, and there's no institution or authority capable of stamping you into expertise --not anymore. Cheer up though; if you honestly are an expert in a field, you don't need to rely on a certificate, and if you've been using one as a crutch, letting it go to hear more of others' thoughts instead of bludgeoning the world with your own will only make you better.

These in mind, for the very few who do possess expertise all that remains is to be aware of its boundaries. It's easy to imagine that mastery of one domain implies mastery of others. Or that an entire domain, rather than a small sliver, has been mastered. Part of knowing what you excel at is knowing where you suck, and making no concessions in either direction. Excel responsibly.

3. Sike. There is no three. Seriously, it's very unlikely that what you think about a given topic matters. This doesn't mean you can't express yourself, it merely points out that beyond these two rare and precious circumstances, you're taking chances: that nobody cares, that you're making an ass of yourself, that you're flooding the channel with all noise and no signal. These aren't even such terrible chances to take, context-dependent³. But it's a good idea to be aware you're taking them, and especially to consider whether to keep pushing with your thoughts past any number of refutations or signs of disinterest. After all, there's nothing inherently wrong with thinking; it's insisting inappropriately that robs people of the possibility of productive communication.

1. This goes both ways, too. Expressing interest in someone's thoughts disingenuously isn't "polite". It doesn't promote inclusion or fight famine or stop crime or achieve any other ridiculous collective goods. All it does is engender misplaced notions of self-importance, which actually does achieve ridiculous collective evils. [↩]
2. Sometimes formulated as "Just because it happened to you doesn't make it interesting," though that's probably just as hard a pill to swallow for the first time as what I've put above the fold. [↩]
3. Consider that this very article takes all of these chances. [↩]