Independent Thinking

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

- Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)

Introduction:

Learning how to think critically is one of the most important skills you can cultivate in the 21st century. 

Someone or something has been pulling your strings since the day you were born.

Believe it or not, we share a number of similarities with canned food. We’re both labeled by a series of numbers that make us eligible to go through systems which dictate whether we’re functional enough to serve our purpose. 

A can-of-beans is given a serial number as it goes through a factory’s assembly lines to get packaged and distributed to retailers, who sell the beans to consumers. 

Similarly, we’re given identification numbers (ITIN, SSN, or your country’s equivalent) to go through a process of “selective education,” and ultimately become employable workers for large corporations.

The beans are consumed by us, and we’re consumed by the corporations. 

Bad students are ostracized by society, and bad canned food is thrown out.   

Reality Check:

The average adult goes about their life thinking that the world is a safe, nurturing place. Although this is partially due to ignorance, it’s mainly due to a systemic failure in the department of education.

Every human has 2 sets of parents: The people that bring you into the world biologically, and the knowledge you gain from studying the humanities (nature & culture). You don’t truly understand yourself until you learn about the monstrosities that humans are capable of. Educating yourself in history will teach you more about your shadow-side, which is the only way to attain true mastery of self.

(Carl Jung has great ideas on this topic if you’re interested)

Naive people are easy to manipulate. When certain events in life force you to realize that the people in charge want you to be docile & weak, reality flips upside-down. The truth is, most people are in it for themselves, especially the ones at the top, and if you want to survive, you have to understand that life is a zero-sum game. When someone wins, someone else has to lose. That can be groups of people, or individuals. It’s your responsibility to do your own research, and discover the truth about the systems that govern our world. 

Let me rephrase that:

Your chief task in life is to discover who’s pulling the strings, and decide whether you want to go down their prescribed path or not. If, after hours of introspection, you decide to pursue liberty, you begin a journey that most people don’t have the courage to begin. 

(If you need a starting point, I recommend learning about the financial system)

Independent Thinking:

If you want to truly escape the “rat-race,” and start living life on your own terms, you need to begin reprogramming your mind. You have to learn to think for yourself.

Learn to make reasonable claims, and articulate your thoughts in a manner that is justified by multiple streams of rationale. 

This isn’t a skill that can be manifested through wishful thinking. It takes time & effort to build this trait, and like most other skills, you will suck in the beginning. 

Luckily, there are people in the world who’ve spent their entire lives questioning and exposing valuable information. These people didn’t have distractions like social media, so they spent all their time thinking about life.

Quality Inputs: 

These knowledgeable people synthesized their learnings/teachings into books that are accessible to the general public. In the earlier days, information like this was heavily encrypted and hidden from everyday people. 

We can find this knowledge on the internet for free. 

The only thing holding us back from reading these texts, and building our own worldviews, is our laziness.

Consuming texts published by knowledgeable authors is the most effective way to build a strong foundation for argumentative reasoning. 

Note: You can also listen to summaries & podcasts related to these books, but I’ve found that going to the original source is oftentimes better than listening to distilled versions of someone else’s takeaways. 

Summaries are great for a general overview, but they can’t substitute for reading the book itself. 

Writing:

Having a foundation of quality inputs is the preliminary step to writing, which is the pinnacle of articulating your thoughts and mapping out your ideas. 

Writing is an art, but if you can master writing clearly, you arm yourself with the ability to voice your opinions on any platform. You’re using symbols to bring your ideas to life. This is power.

Don’t overthink the details, just start writing and develop your skill through practice. 

To summarize:

Consume information that is synthesized by great thinkers, and use the information to cultivate your ability to think & write effectively. 

This is supposed to be the point of schooling, however, since teachers don’t deliberately tell you, most students assume that it’s all about the grades. Students cheat on tests to acquire good grades, which puts unskilled workers in the workforce, and that leads to a malleable, docile society.

Critical, independent thinking is your superpower!

Now, I’ve been learning a lot about this stuff, but I’m nowhere near being an expert. 

You know who is an expert? Jordan Peterson. Personally, I think he’s one of the greatest thinkers of the 21st century. 

He credits his intelligence to reading certain kinds of literature, and he’s been generous enough to include a list on his website!

My goal is to read the books mentioned in this list. 

If you understood the point of this post, I highly recommend that you check out this link: 

https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/books/

Closing:

This post was pretty intense for me to write, but I’m hoping that it provided you with an alternative perspective; one that wasn’t being crammed-down your throat by mainstream media or influencers.

The whole point of this brand is to cultivate my ability to think critically, and inspire others to do the same.

See you next time,

J.R.