The Herald-Zeitung

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinion, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”—Oscar Wilde

Earlier this summer I was attending an enjoyable social function and a group of men, all friends and/or neighbors, were cordially discussing an important national political matter when one of the men angrily interrupted by raising his voice. Pointing his finger at the rest of us as if we were unruly children back-talking their teachers, he recited an almost identical talking point I had recently heard on a cable talk show. His deliberate argument taken solidly from a popular television know-it-all commentator reminded me of an android or some kind of mechanical monster repeating what he was programmed to say.

Please don’t misunderstand me—there’s certainly nothing wrong with repeating something someone says that you whole-heartedly agree with, but it disturbs me to no end when otherwise intelligent individuals don’t take the time to think and examine things for themselves. All too often I find people are content to take the easy way out when it comes to issues, be they political or social.

Far too many of us “buy in” to something we hear without ever checking the facts. Conversely we often oppose anything and everything uttered by someone we decide we don’t like and could never agree with despite what may be being said. Such an approach leaves little or no room for intelligent conversation, compromise—or reason.

A teacher I greatly respected used to advise his students to read what no one else was reading and think what no one else is thinking. “Think for yourselves,” he would say.

Face it, we live in a world filled with half-truths and broken promises. The time of objective reporting and news with Walter Cronkite has given way to a 24/7, 365 days a year news beast that is always hungry as if it were a half-starved omnivore constantly yearning for more. This media beast has an insatiable appetite and cares little whether it devourers the protein of truth or the empty calories of bubble gum. Add to that the daily avalanche of data on internet blogs and it’s no wonder that we find our way by simply following the crowd not allowing ourselves the prerogative of independent thought or reflection.

In the end it’s really up to each of us to make the determination to think for ourselves and not let anyone or anything do our thinking for us. Thus we owe it to ourselves to read, to study and not permit someone with a blaring voice or a flashy domineering presence to make up our minds about what it is we believe and accept.

If, indeed, it is truth that sets us free, then it is the knowledge of that truth that we must seek to find. It is only then that we will truly be free.