It’s extremely difficult for me to actually use reasoning and to be honest about what I think about any given topic or idea. This I think comes from the pressure of other people, and other people’s thoughts. It seems that the majority of the time my thoughts are “Well quite frankly I have no idea.” It’s a hard thing to say though what if you just say “well quite frankly I have no idea too much?” Will people think that you’re just a person that has no idea all the time? To be honest I’m not sure why I’m even writing this blog post. What are the things that I’m sure of in the world. There’s not a really big list at the moment. I’m 18 years old so maybe this is just the point where I start to actually think for myself rather than be ok with seeing someone else’s idea and just running with it. I was realizing that a lot of the things that I used to belive were quite unfounded by any hard evidence. However what I can say with certanty is that I dont like when people are so sure of their own ideas that you must believe then, or they are just treated as fact because they were decided a long time ago, or it’s just so blatantly obvious that one must just treat them as truth. That really does but me, but thankfully I’ve run into a fair amount of people that are very happy to talk rationally with you without contempt or anger or judgement. Maybe the whole idea I hear a lot about people being very hostile to people with different opinions is overblown. The point in there is that I have probobly assumed people were going to be hostile if you had different ideas, which was an assumption I shouldve checked more deeply, however It seems like a pretty common idea to get thrown around. Maybe my brain is just saying HEY you should confront your ideas of everything, because it seems that you were wrong. At this point it’s hard to say what I was or wasnt wrong about in every specific context. In my opinion these are the steps when looking at any given topic.

  1. If I have preconcieved notions from what other people told me, what are they, do they hold water?
  2. Am I changing my thoughts because of a pressure of what other people have told me, did I even give it thought?
  3. what do I think on a real bare level, if I step away from what everyone has told me, and just think about it myself.

Beware of thinking something, not because you believe it, but becuase it makes you cool (meaning putting you in an in-group). I’ve probobly fallen into this trap, and you may have too, but I couldnt say for sure.

I think that there is a feeling of uneasyness about my notions because I have weak backing to them, and maybe that the solution would be to get some backing. Something else is very apparent in this. Would you be willing to have an idea contrary to what everyone else thinks? As much as I like to think of myself as somewhat contrarian, going against the flow isnt easy for anyone if you arent part of the kindof BS contrarian in-group. Maybe I’m not a contrarian afterall, maybe I’m a TBD. Social pressure is incredibly hard to go against. If all your friends think one thing, might you say you believe that thing out of pressure alone, seems like they all feel very strongly about it, why dont you? Thats the reall crux of it. You maybe not in reality, but in your own mind feel slightly pushed away. What are the things that I feel actually sure about. Maybe I cant say, but I can say some things that I have some idea of, and use the process above to flush it out. Do other people think about things like this, or do people just think something because it’s “cool” to think? This problem brings us right back to our three steps, because it sure feels like the world tells us that people only think things because they were told, or yada yada yada. I dont know if I believe this to be entirely the case, although I do worry for myself and people close to me that we may be fed thoughts rather than thinking. This may be a bit cliche, but I worry about it with myself. Maybe the only path is to accept that opinions are not absolutes and that we should be open to seeing other ways. There is a problem about this that I talked about with a friend reecently. Almost any side of a topic can be completely believed in by anyone raional. This seems like the reason people can even have a debate, being that there are relevent points on each side that can be seen as reasonable. I do feel like I need to step up my rigor in this area. Usually in school when we are given a topic to write an essay I would make the point I would argue first, and then find evidence to support it. This is likely not what they were trying to get us to do, but it lead to a faster assignment, although with less of a full picture. What can I say with certaintly? I feel that I need to work on my preconcieved notions. other things are a little more up in the air. I remember when I was younger I was really sure of much more. I liked a specific movie, or song, or yada yada yada. These things may just naturally get more vague as we get older. I remember having bowie4life@emailservice.com as my email for a while. I havent listened to much bowie reecently. My whole life plan kinda got a bit of a wrench thrown into it. For a while I wanted to be a fighter pilot, but that just kinda faded as the years went on. It would feel disengenious to follow a path that I wasnt into anymore. At the moment what do I want to do with my life? Not sure to be completely honest. I’m good at working with computers, and people will likely still want people to work with computers.