There’s a central tenet in Stoicism that you don’t have to have an opinion on everything. That if you minded your own business, kept your opinions to yourself (or better off, didn’t have them atall), you would be a lot more content with everything going on around you.

On a surface level, it makes sense–don’t make such harsh judgments about things so far out of our control.

Yet, as I was thinking about this recently, it’s simultaneously a very dull concept. Even if these things may be out of our control, the ability to have an opinion, and subsequently, is a gift in itself.

One of the most important pieces of writing advice I’ve ever gotten was to always have an opinion–even if you don’t agree with it. Not necessarily the best life advice, but for writing, it consistently puts out an engaging product, one in which people will read from front to end. Simply put, unique opinions are what make good writing good writing.

My favorite type of opinionated writing (if I can categorize it as such) is satire, a form which is surely coming to its final moments in the upcoming years. In a few words, it’s the process of transforming “abstract critiques of modern urban civilization into vivid tableaux”, personifying the opinions we have on culture, politics, and society as a whole.

As I said before, though, satire is getting harder and harder to pull off these days, where reality often outpaces the absurdity of the satire we create. How are we to exaggerate for effect when the actual state of affairs already seems like a bad joke?

Yet, I can't help but feel that's exactly why we need satire now more than ever. It's like holding up a funhouse mirror to society – sure, the reflection is warped, but it shows us things about ourselves we might not see otherwise.

There’s a reason as to why Stoic claims of not holding opinions resonate, and I understand their purpose. But when it comes to the big stuff, the issues that truly matter, there’s nothing perhaps more valuable than opinions, than critiques, than the satires we create. Because in a world that often feels like it's spinning out of control, sometimes a good laugh – and a good think – is exactly what we need.