If you have talked to me within the past two weeks, I bet the title of this article made you cringe, and you are probably not even sure if you actually want to read this, and I don't blame you. However, to your relief, this article is not what you think it is, so I would suggest to keep reading.

So here's the thing: A couple weeks ago while tip-toeing through the construction that is Youngstown's Wick Avenue, I commented to a friend (hey, Andrew!) on how the dirt in this one spot was super dark in color, and he jokingly said "that's just really dirty dirt." We laughed it off, and the conversation kinda ended there. That is, until Andrew came up with another question, "Is dirt really dirty though?" Automatically I said yes, until I really thought about it. What actually is dirty? Upon looking a bit more into the topic at hand, I discovered that the word itself has a couple different meanings, some of which make it possibly to classify dirt as dirty, and some where the actual entity of dirt is defined as clean, it just depends on your outlook and what definition you take.

Why was I asking everyone this question you may ask? Do I actually care this much about dirt? Heck no. But, I love to think, and I love to make other people think. When I have a relatively interesting or silly question, I have gotten in the habit of asking it to many of my friends and numerous other people I talk to throughout the day. Do I actually want to know the answer? Yes... well no... sorta. Typically the questions I ask are extremely subjective, so in most cases, there really is no right answer. However, I like hearing other people's takes on the subject of discussion. All in all, what other people think is not actually going to affect me what-so-ever. If I have a strong opinion on a topic, usually it's not going to change based on what other people have to say unless I decide myself that I want to change it, just as my opinion of the person answering is not going to change. I do like hearing the other outlooks though. Even the very many differing opinions on questions as silly as, "If types of pasta were personalities, what would everyone be?," show how everyone's brains work differently and how everyone's different experiences make them have different outlooks on a vast array of topics. This is something I find extremely interesting.

As I went through the next coupe days asking people whether or not dirt was dirty, most of the people I talked to took a light-hearted approach to the question. (The fact that I was probably giggling each time I asked it, probably did not convince people take the question super seriously.) Throughout the process, I also tended to play devil's advocate. Yes, I had my own opinion on the topic (my opinion did eventually change through further research and argument), but to get people to think deeper, I tended to counteract just about anything they said, regardless of whether or not I agreed with them, and honestly, for the most part I was just speaking nonsense. I am no geologist, and know next nothing about dirt, or what the word "dirty" should mean. I was basically just arguing for the sake of arguing. While doing this, I discovered two things: (1) Arguing with people is rather fun, and (2) some people do not take well to people disagreeing with them... at all. Like I said, the majority of the people I talked to took a very light-hearted approach to the discussion, but that was not the case with everyone. Some people got really fired up, and became rather angry with me for simply disagreeing (or pretending to disagree) with them.

I found this to be quite amusing to be honest. No, I did not like that people were becoming angry with me for something so silly, but unfortunately, that is how this world now is, especially in this country as demonstrated by our two-party political system. You give people two choices, there may be middle ground, but overall there are only two choices that actually seem to matter, and you tell them to pick one. Obviously there are going to be different viewpoints and not everyone is going to see eye-to-eye, but instead of being civil about the differing opinions, people turn to hating one another simply because they do not agree. They end pointing out one another's flaws, blinding themselves from any semblance of good that may be on the other side. All in all, they end up arguing about figurative dirt, just as Andrew and I started arguments about literal dirt.