What is real stubbornness?

I guess some will immediately start asking why I am so interested in that. I’m thinking that I often meet people who refuse to move, change their mindsets, or take appropriate action when circumstances or evidence would expectedly dictate ‘change’.

There are reasons why people don’t change or move. These can be numerous e.g. fear of change, fear of the unexpected, difficulty in changing habits, effect of tradition or culture, inability to see benefits of change, inflexible attitudes, forgetfulness.

But I’m not talking about that kind of stuff so much. I’m talking ‘real stubbornness’. That is something I’ve been observing over the last 3 years. I’ve come to some ideas about what real-stubbornness is:

1. Foremost, it is a sense of pride in being all things that constitute being stubborn. People who are real-stubborn never try to hide the fact. They joke about it, laugh and boast about it. They boast that they are boasting about their stubbornness.
2. There are no inhibitory factors related to fear, anxiety, culture, tradition, failure of memory, cognition or habit.
3. Logic, reason, evidence, adverse personal life consequences, adverse consequences for others – nothing moves them in attitude or in action.
4. Even pain or repeated severe pain does not cause them to shift in mind or body.
5. Promise or realistic prospect of the utmost pleasure or wealth does not motivate them to move.
6. Even their awareness of others who are equally stubborn does not bring insight or change. They simply malign others who are ‘real-stubborn’ as if the condition couldn’t possibly affect them.
7. The few who gain partial insight refuse to change. Instead they wear the badge of being ‘real-stubborn’ with some sense of achievement.

I’ve come to a sad and possibly misanthropic conclusion that the condition is not as uncommon as we might think. My personal observation is that it is quite common.

Trying to help these people is like wasting your time and effort to say the least. Do I feel sorry for them? Like no!! They deserve all that life gives to them. They enjoy spinning top in mud flood! As they say on a Rock close to your heart - ‘Eeef dee cyap fit, wear it!’ [which upon code-switching becomes ‘If the cap fits wear it’].