What opinions mean to me

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Not that long ago, a friend and I were charged with after-dinner dish duty at the wilderness camp where we both worked. Making conversation, I asked, “What’s your favorite color?” They thought for a moment, tilting their head up to the ceiling and teasing their eyebrows together before responding, “I don’t think I have an opinion on that. I like to keep an open mind; I don’t have a lot of opinions.”

I was stunned, not just because I was due to begin my internship in the Opinion department at the Minnesota Star Tribune in a matter of days, but also because one of my favorite things is to ask people what they think and to tell them what I think in return. Also, who doesn’t have a favorite color?

If I’d been born 100 years ago, give or take a couple of decades, chances are my opinions would have been my husband’s, or my father’s, my uncle’s or my brother’s. So, it’s meaningful for me to not only have a platform to voice my own opinions, but to live in a time period where I can actually say my opinions and have them valued (more or less).

Can you tell that “words of affirmation” are my love language?

The whole ordeal reminded me of one of my high school reading assignments, because the literature that we read in high school finds a way to connect in the trajectory of our real lives (or maybe that’s just been the case for me). “A Doll’s House,” written by Henrik Ibsen, made a big impact on me, an opinionated, loud, feminist lady trying to find her voice in a turbulent political era (the first Trump administration and onward).

“When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions … . And when I came to live with you … I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hand into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you — or else I pretended to.”

Her realization meant that she wasn’t just hiding her thoughts, but that she didn’t even know what her thoughts were.

Which is one of the reasons my internship this summer has been so meaningful. News reporting is great, extremely important and difficult work that I respect immensely; but being able to tell your friends, neighbors, Minnesota Star Tribune subscribers and people walking on the street what you think about today’s happenings is a crucial part of being a whole person.

Opinions are a gift, a privilege, and it is a social responsibility for you to voice yours. You owe it to yourself to collect as many of them as possible (like Pokémon), and to think about the women in your family who couldn’t — or felt like they couldn’t — share their thoughts.

Dresses should have pockets.

Masked, badgeless ICE agents picking people up off the street and throwing them in a van is wrong.

Studiously form as many viewpoints as you can, making them as obscure or newsworthy as you want. They can range dramatically, among many different topics, and spark insightful conversations.

This is not to say that your opinions should always be the loudest in every room, drowning out others. You have a right to voice them as much as anybody else, but so does anybody else. Give yourself space to express yourself and do the same for others. That’s what is wonderful about opinions: They’re for everyone.

And don’t go around spouting every little thing you see on the internet. Journalists fact-check for you, but they can’t follow you around your media algorithm 24/7. Misinformation and disinformation flow wildly, so do your part to dam the spread.

Talk with people who know more than you on a topic. Gather some data. Go to the library and read a book. Pick up a newspaper and let qualified reporters and interviewees guide you in your opinion-making process.

In a political era wrought with turmoil and unease, dictators and democratic backsliding, opinions should be had and spoken. Stances should be taken. Anything less and you’re doing yourself a disservice.

But that’s just my opinion.