Embracing Independent Thinking for a Better World

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect – Mark Twain

We need only look into the recent past to see the evidence of how stupid we humans can be when following the majority. Independent thinking, based on some very simple rules, can often get us out of very tricky situations.

There is enough for everyone. Enough land, enough food, enough money. It can be argued that boarders are necessary. We could say that our growing population needs to be evenly distributed so that a country’s infrastructure can cope. This is common sense. And so if we take the world as a whole, even though we have boarders, resources can easily be distributed among us all. It’s when we fear there not being enough that problems occur. The mentality of: this is mine and that is yours belongs in childhood. We, as a species, are still very much in our infancy.

That said, it is not all of us that remain in our infancy. We could look at an individual such as Bill Gates and say his attitude and philanthropy is a reflection of his maturity

Immediately, there are those who will say, oh well it’s okay for Bill Gates he has more money than he could ever spend. And extreme examples are open to this. However, putting this to one side, if we all took Bill Gates philanthropy as an example, and gave away the same proportion of our income, it wouldn’t amount to that much. But would certainly make a massive difference in terms of how wealth is distributed. All that needs to happen is for us to grow a little so we may lose the same mentality as our children.

Ultimately, all of us are only ever custodians, of what we think of, as our possessions. And this includes land. In time all boarders will change. How will we continue to distribute land as the planet rearranges itself? Something it has done from the very beginning. Do we just fight more wars and continue with the hatred and anger we’re currently experiencing? There will be generation after generation of this. Or will we eventually reach the kind of understandings needed for a long term, peaceful, survival? I would suggest more thinking, away from the majority, is required. You can start today. Can you not? Time to pause and reflect.