How to Think for Yourself

Can you make yourself more independent-minded?

I wish someone had told me about this distinction when I was a kid, because it's one of the most important things to think about when you're deciding what kind of work you want to do.

It's hard to be a conformist if you don't know what you're supposed to conform to.

The third component of independent-mindedness, curiosity, may be the most interesting.

The end goal is not to find flaws in the things you're told, but to find the new ideas that had been concealed by the broken ones.

The three components of independent-mindedness work in concert: fastidiousness about truth and resistance to being told what to think leave space in your brain, and curiosity finds new ideas to fill it.

More generally your goal should be not to let anything into your head unexamined, and things don't always enter your head in the form of statements. Some of the most powerful influences are implicit. How do you even notice these? By standing back and watching how other people get their ideas.

It seems to me that it has three components: fastidiousness about truth, resistance to being told what to think, and curiosity.

You can also take more explicit measures to prevent yourself from automatically adopting conventional opinions. The most general is to cultivate an attitude of skepticism.