Mutable Conviction

Conversation threads sometimes weave unlikely parts of my life together, binding patchwork scraps of thought into a quilt that I am left to stitch into place. Here I stitch the fabric created last Saturday.


I had breakfast with a dear friend, who revealed a moment of self discovery that she has a tendency to reject ideas when initially presented only to later adopt them as good ideas on her own. As we talked this through, it became clear that this pattern was probably more related to her needing time to take in and process an idea than desiring to exert control or put forth ideas on her own. Her resolution was to soften her initial response with a request for time to process - “I’m not feeling that right now and I need some time to process. I will think about it and get back to you.” She also decided to be sure to attribute the original idea back to the true owner once she adopted it.

The confounding part is that my friend speaks with conviction. She is not at all forceful or abrasive, but she does express a level of certainty when offering her thoughts and opinions. She is not emphatic or argumentative in the least, but solid in her truth at that moment, yet her truth may change over time. My dear friend has mutable conviction.

This is a quality I cherish, partly because it resonates with me and my own expression of self and partly because my friend allows herself to evolve in a world of apparent absolutes in opinion and belief. I find the absence of absolutes to be entirely refreshing. She is not firmly entrenched in any script, belief system or party line and she makes no claim of knowing more than anyone else or of being right. My friend speaks her truth at this moment and she is not done yet. I enjoy conversations with her as adventures in discovery. I am always interested in where she is now. And, I am honored to share in her process.

We shared a delightful moment of realization that we were both built similarly in this respect, and this mutable conviction was part of what fueled our cherished time together. We essentially allow each other to speak our truths in a particular moment, with certainty, while using the opportunity to explore and process the full range of thought and feeling attached, sometimes coming to a different resolution together. And, should either of our truths change over time, neither one of us ever says, “Hey! This is not what you told me last time.”

My friend marveled that someone once accused her of lying because she had, in essence, changed her mind. I personally remain consistently amazed that people take me so seriously, when I hold nearly everything in question, so much so that my sister once dropped a full tray of fresh picked strawberries in the middle of picking and shrieked “Oh my God! How do you live?”

While I fully understand that this mutable conviction can be somewhat unnerving for those who require certainty, we truly are not doing this to mess you up. I suppose there might be some sort of human characteristic continuum where one side is more fluid and the other is more solid or concrete. My friend and I are clearly on the fluid end of things and we are somehow okay with that.

We giggled at the notion of speaking our mutable conviction then adding some mode of inflection or question at the end. I have often wondered if I should punctuate everything I say with a tag line of sorts, “And, this could all change over time.” If you drop your strawberries and screech at the thought of this, you may be more on the concrete side of things.

I enjoyed a lovely visit with my oldest and dearest friend and her husband later that Saturday. We had a remarkably similar conversation, but on an entirely different vein. We embarked on a personality comparison of my friend, her husband, her sister and me. We agreed that the sister, husband and I all spoke with conviction, which often stressed my friend out, especially if we were in the same space, as she experienced this as a source of potential conflict. We agreed that while the husband and I both spoke with conviction, we did not require agreement, just expression. Neither of us had to be right or prove the other wrong. Her husband kept saying that I was kind of quirky in my conviction, but wasn’t able to aptly pinpoint what he meant by it, just that I was “different”. I was able to makes sense of this by sharing excerpts from insights discovered earlier in the day. 

These two conversations wove together two vastly different parts of my life and seemingly disparate interactions, where the binding thread was mutable conviction. I speak with certainty, but I am willing, able and likely to change my mind. And, while I speak with certainty about my current truth, this could all change in time.