How To Think Independently And Start Your Life Anew.
1. Stop reading this and start thinking for yourself instead.
No more steps.
...
That's it.
That's the end.
...
Okay, fine.
2. If you are still reading this, ask yourself why.
3. Is it because you don't know who you are?
4. Do you think I can help you figure it out?
5. How am I supposed to do that?
6. I don't even know you.
7. Did I say something to make you think that I might? Or that we're similar in some way?
8. That feeling of recognition and familiarity is an illusion. It's because you're looking for a reflection in an inanimate piece of text.
9. Still here? Maybe you should ask yourself what led you to believe anyone could help you think independently in the first place.
10. Isn't that something you need to learn how to do on your own?
11. Isn't that the very definition of independent thinking?
12. Maybe you're reading this just because there is more to read. After all, I could stop writing this now if I wanted to and just leave you to your thoughts.
13. Maybe you're just curious. You're already confident you know how to think for yourself but you want to see what else I have to say on the subject.
14. How do you know I'm an independent thinker?
15. Maybe I'm looking for the same answers you are.
16. Maybe that's why I'm writing this.
17. Maybe you never assumed I knew anything in the first place and came to this with a skeptic's eye.
18. If so, good.
19. Pleased with yourself?
20. Did my validation support your self-image as an independent thinker?
21. Why?
22. I still don't know the first thing about you.
23. Maybe you're skeptical not from a genuine sense of curiosity but out of a desire for smug social superiority.
24. Maybe you're one of those paranoid conspiracy theorists who assume everyone is lying to them all the time.
25. Does that count as independent thinking?
26. That's not a rhetorical question. I genuinely don't know.
27. It's true. I am writing this because I don't know the answers to any of these questions.
28. I'm writing this in order to define myself.
29. If you've read this far, maybe you can tell me how you define yourself in the comments.
30. Or how you think you do it.
31. If you're sure you know, is it because someone told you how to do it, or because you decided for yourself?
32. Is it something you had to figure out, or did you just know?
33. How much choice do you think you have?
34. Does anyone have a choice?
35. Have I just been putting off that choice?
36. Or is it more likely that no one ever figures themselves out completely?
37. Is it an open-ended process of discovery, never to be resolved except in death?
38. Can we decide to be done with that process, if only to say in a definite way, "This is who I am," even if we reserve the right to change our minds later?
39. "This is who I am right now"?
40. If so, how did you decide?
41. What factored into that decision?
42. How much do you control and how much comes out of things you can't control at all?
...
43. I started this having no idea how it would end.
44. It feels like I can stop.
45. Then again, it feels like it should never stop, even though it has to at some point.
46. I suppose a summarizing statement or question is as good a way to wrap this up as any.
47. How about this:
Who do you think you are?