Individual Thought

Reminder: Thinking for yourself is not bad for your health.

Picture by kmans from Pixabay.

It happened to me the other night, at dinner with some people. We were talking about a rather recent, important topic. One of them said their piece, convinced. Another nodded. A third added a “yes, exactly” and then reinforced the first argument with more or less the same words. I looked around the table. They were all very good people, intelligent, sensitive. But they were playing a part.

Then the eyes fell on me. “What do you think?”

I felt the weight of that question. Not because I didn’t have an opinion, but because my opinion was slightly nuanced, a little out of step. It wasn’t opposed, it wasn’t provocative. It was simply mine. And the moment I voiced it, I perceived that second of silence. That small rift. As if, by saying what I truly thought, I had betrayed a silent expectation, a prediction.

Thinking for yourself, sometimes, comes at a price: you realize how often others don’t. And you feel alone, for a moment. But it’s a strange loneliness. It isn’t heavy. It’s like leaving an overcrowded room and standing for a second in the empty hallway, breathing. It’s there that you feel (and realize) that there is still an inside and an outside.

I haven’t always been able to do this. For years I believed that “forming an opinion” meant choosing which side to take between two predetermined, ready-made camps. I would read an article, listen to broadcasts, and then repeat the most convincing phrases as if they were my own. I wasn’t lying to others. I was lying to myself. Because deep down, while I was saying those words, there was something whispering: you know very well that’s not really how it is for you.

Then one day, I don’t know exactly when, I stopped. Or rather, I started. I started allowing myself the luxury of not knowing right away what to think, of reflecting before speaking nonsense and repeating. I had the courage to say out loud, “I don’t have a clear idea yet,” without feeling ashamed. I took a piece of information and let it ‘settle’ inside me, like tea in a cup, before drinking it.

Then I discovered something else, which surprised me. Thinking for yourself does not push people away. It pushes away the wrong ones. Those who only want confirmation. The right ones, the few, the true ones, come closer; they are almost drawn to it. They sense that you are not performing. They sense that if you say “yes,” it’s a true yes, and if you say “I don’t know,” it’s an honest I don’t know.

So I made myself a rule, without writing it down anywhere: first I listen to what others say, then I listen to what my intuition says, then I listen to what my reason says, and only at the end do I decide. The three don’t always go in step or agree. Often, intuition is right before reason. Sometimes, instead, reason says, “slow down a little more, you’re oversimplifying.”

And that’s fine.

The important thing is not to delegate. Not in this case.

Because delegating thought is like delegating breathing.

I can do it for a while, but in the end, I run out of air.

Going back to what happened the other night at that gathering, after that second of silence, someone replied: “I hadn’t thought of it that way…” It wasn’t approval. It was curiosity. And I smiled inside, because I didn’t want to convert anyone. I only wanted to remind myself, before anyone else, that you can still think for yourself without wanting to persuade and convince, nor submit to a sect.

It feels good. It makes you feel better. It’s not bad for your health.

Paradoxically, it might be the only form of mental health we have left.

D.D.