To Outsource One's Thinking ~ The Great Crime Against Oneself

To Outsource One's Thinking

One of the immeasurable benefits, I believe most would agree, of having found even a few Souls who's minds are similarly focused ~ on placing immense value on Enlightenment and the Quest for Truth, in my case ~ is that even speaking or writing to them ~ even before receiving their response ~ is in itself intensely valuable to the development of our own thoughts, simply because you write in the knowledge that your words will be truly understood.

I had a choice, this past hour, of either jumping first on here to write, or of responding to my pen pal before doing so, knowing that the clock was ticking, but that I wanted to get out today's thoughts now, before I get out to Planet Fitness, rather than sometime after Midnight.

As I often do, I responded first to my pen pal. My motivations were twofold:

1 ~ We're dealing with some schmucks on FakeBook. I wanted to offer some commiserating words, and knew that she couldn't possibly get them, today, if I waited until later.

2 ~ I was also cognizant of the fact that some of my best words, at least in my own perception, are the direct result of having previously written to an intelligent Kindred Spirit.

You, Prospective Readers, will of course be the judges of whether or not that which follows is worthy of your time, or of Cyber Space Dust! But here is what I came up with...

Yes. Those WERE the Droids you were looking for.

Ironically, the central subject of conversation between my friend and I ~ who I've just described as indirectly helping me form my own thoughts ~ was that of undue influence!

I believe that many otherwise reasonable and rational people outsource their thinking, and are utterly oblivious to having done so. They pick up on carefully salted keywords, they imagine that they've discovered Kindred Spirits....and they unconsciously shift their entire thinking process from Standard to Automatic: They let the Media Machine drive. They let the talking heads tell them what to think...how to feel...when to get angry...and even what terms to shout.

And when enough people outsource their thinking ~ when they unconsciously shift their thinking process from Standard to Automatic ~ and abdicate their Free Will to The Party...

Bad things can happen.

Bad things do happen.

It happened to Rome.

It happened to Germany.

And it certainly happened to Russia, China, Persia, and North Korea.

It can happen...to us.