Put view out there and you win some, lose some (readers)

Being liked seems to be the major concern for many these days.

A bit like how one often prefers salad for dinner after a heavy Sunday roast for lunch, today (for reasons which last week's column readers will be well acquainted), I thought I'd exercise my right to write to an unspecified brief and wax lyrical about the joys of impending motherhood. Or the beauty to be found in the passing of the seasons. Or high heels versus flats. Or something else equally insipid.

Except the problem with this is that in the same way some people love salad while others will swear by the roast, you can't please all the people all the time.

And, of course, you have to ask yourself: why would you want to?

For some reason I can't put my finger on, being liked in today's world comes second only on the wish-list to being famous (and we've all seen enough reality TV to know people will stoop to impressive lows to achieve fame, even - or sometimes especially - at the cost of personal dignity).

Most of us without the skills to invent a cure for cancer or to get on to a cooking show have accepted that fame will remain elusive and settle instead for being liked.

We are polite to our elders, we always say please and thank you and we certainly would never dream of saying what we really think beyond the safety of closed doors.

And maybe that has more to do with that fact that these days, people are increasingly intolerant of anyone with an opinion different from their own.

That makes my job as someone who has been spending a decade writing 600 words every week under the giant banner headline "Opinion" rather interesting. Or should I say challenging? Or dangerous?

Because it seems if what you say isn't in line with what someone else thinks, you had better watch out (or words to that effect).

Unlike a (thankfully) small clutch of inflexible stalwarts who believe it is their way or the highway, I am of the opinion that all opinions have value - especially those that are different from my own.

The more opinions we have in circulation, the more diverse our community and thus the richer we become. - although deploy Security if someone takes that in the financial sense rather than the cultural one in which it was intended.

It is possible to live in this world and be liked by all, but to do so requires the suspension of opinions on all matters excepting perhaps those on salad versus roast beef. But what do we learn from that? And where's the fun in it?

The irony with being occasionally controversial instead of consistently irrelevant is that while I lose a few fickle fans in the process, I gain the grudging respect of a small but astute group of readers who suddenly discover I am not as vapid as they presumed me to be.

But, sadly, unless those same people are prepared to escort me phalanx-like through the mean streets of a nation where having an opinion is a little like being a faith healer during the Spanish Inquisition, it seems the only way forward is to keep my opinions to myself. In which case, I could hardly be expected to retain my post at the top of the page entitled "Opinion".

And so folks, it seems that, love me or hate me, either option beats the alternative, which is to be a writer who is universally liked but unemployed.

It's been said that we seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions. So the question I pose to you is not whether my opinion on any given topic is right or wrong (because it's an opinion, it goes without saying it can be neither) but whether, in a nation that supports freedom of speech, I am entitled to it.