Right, Wrong, and Both

My DH and I got to talk a long time today.  Sometimes we just talk to hear each others' voices.  A human voice is powerful.  When it's a loving voice, it's so much more powerful.  It can change the world.

Or not.

Raising kids has highlighted to me how much stake people put into being right.  Part of the conversation today revolved around that too.  Even when people are caught doing something that they know is wrong, they'll defend their special case.  You know how folks got all riled up about how certain groups hoarded food and medical supplies so that they didn't get to the folks who really needed it?  I bet if you talked to them they'd defend their actions.  They'd justify until your ears bled, trying to make a case for why they're special or who gave them permission or how it's for reasons that you don't understand.  The loving voices aren't being heard.

Some of the wisest, smartest people I know are secure in their beliefs and at the same time allow that they might be wrong or, even more importantly and relevant in this case, how someone else might be right or even different and also right.

It's so important to allow someone else to be right.  Being okay with being wrong is important, but I think it's far more important to allow someone else to have validity and to let that validity have enough weight that it could potentially change your perceptions, your outlook, your world.  

So when I talked about the power of the human voice, did you take that to mean that you have a powerful voice that can change the world (true) or that the power referred to people who love you and you love (also true) or both?  

Folding this back into writing, part of making a complex character is this need to be right.  Especially the good guys have a tendency to be bland when they think they're right and are right.  But you can be a very good person and think you're right and be wrong (good people, when they discover this, try to change though they'll try to defend their original perception) or be a good person and think you're wrong and discover you're right, or you can think someone else is right or wrong and be wrong about that.  Working out something that functions as truth translates to complexity in growth, something that a lot of characters lack.  Working out the rights and wrongs is a good tool to help bring characters to life, and give them their own powerful voices.