You should not blindly subscribe to a person or an idea. Instead, you should try to start from first-principles thinking. This is one of the most important things I have learned from Jiddu Krishnamurti.
He suggests that when you completely surrender to an idea, a method, or a way of living taught to you by someone else, you may begin acting without using your own rationality. You stop asking questions. And that is a crucial moment, because the moment we stop asking questions is often the moment we stop aspiring to create something out of the ordinary.
There is a scene in Human Resources where one love bug asks, “Are you going to kill me?” and the other replies, “Worse, I am going to teach you.”
My interpretation of this scene is that teaching can shape and wire our minds to a huge extent. A lot of dogmas, myths, assumptions, and beliefs are passed down to us by older generations. Many people never fully break free from them. They carry those beliefs throughout their lives and eventually pass them on to younger generations.
But I do not think learning itself is bad. Mathematics, science, history, and many other subjects are important. They help us understand the world and the systems that govern human life. The real question is: are we actually learning, or are we simply accepting whatever our teachers and professors tell us?
We learn that two plus two equals four, but do we ever ask where the idea of the number two came from? Do we ask those foundational questions? Or are we being conditioned to reach a conclusion without thinking through the problem?
Are we falling in love with the problem?
This is one thing I learned while studying product management. To come up with the best solution, you need to fall in love with the problem rather than becoming attached to the first solution that comes to mind. When you truly understand the problem, your goal becomes finding the best possible answer. You begin exploring many different ways of approaching it.
So learning is not the problem. The problem begins when learning turns into conditioning. We need to remain aware enough to ask ourselves: am I understanding this, or am I simply being trained to repeat it?
What older generations pass down to us is not limited to facts or knowledge. They also pass down stereotypes, prejudices, fears, and myths. These ideas shape the way we see people we have never met. They make it difficult for us to trust or understand others, and I believe this contributes to much of the hatred we see in the world.
The problem is not necessarily that older generations deliberately want to spread these beliefs. Many of them inherited the same beliefs from the people who came before them. But when those ideas are never questioned, the cycle continues. We hold on to old assumptions and then pass them on to younger generations without examining whether they are true, fair, or useful.
Looking toward the future, I think this problem may become even worse. People are beginning to lose touch with their individual thoughts and preferences because of the growing influence of social media.
Social media has become one of the most powerful tools for telling us what we are supposed to like, what we are supposed to believe, and even what kind of person we are supposed to become. When the same opinions, products, lifestyles, and trends appear repeatedly on our screens, it becomes difficult to tell whether we genuinely like something or whether we have simply seen it enough times to accept it.
This creates bandwagoning rather than individuality. People begin following what is popular instead of developing their own taste.
I believe that people who preserve a strong sense of individuality and develop their own tastes will become increasingly important in the coming age. They will be the people who know how to ask questions, examine assumptions, and think beyond the thirty-second videos playing continuously on their phones.
But individuality does not mean disagreeing with everyone just for the sake of being different. It means having the ability to reach your own conclusion, even when that conclusion happens to agree with the majority.
Ironically, I am now asking you to consider an idea that says you should not subscribe to any person or idea without questioning it.
So please question this article too.
Tell me what you disagree with, what questions it raises for you, and where you think my reasoning falls short. Perhaps the real value of an idea is not that we accept it, but that we are willing to dissect it together.