The story
I used to argue with strangers on the internet.
If somebody wrote something I thought was wrong, I replied.
I was often right, and being right felt good.
One evening I spent two hours on a single argument.
I checked facts, I found sources, I wrote carefully.
In the end the other person stopped replying.
I had won.
Then I closed the computer and looked at the time.
It was almost midnight and I had not eaten dinner.
I asked myself a simple question: what had changed?
That person did not change their mind. Nobody else was reading.
I had given two hours of my life to a conversation with no result.
Now I have a rule: I can write the reply, but I must wait until the morning to send it.
In two years I have sent about three of them.