Probably the greatest ability of man is his ability to challenge his own nature and to be both influenced by and to ignore whatever inputs his surroundings may throw at him. Many a times this simple act can set a man free, or bind him down, depending on his ability to rationally deconstruct and create his own thought process. And by this I mean not ignoring the external stimuli completely, but instead integrating them into his own idea and thus creating a unique and individual idea altogether.
All around me I see people of average or higher intelligence who blindly follow whatever is fed to them, through whatever ways possible. Slowly I have come to realize that we are losing this essential quality that makes us human and that makes us unique, this ability to reason. The ability to comprehend and conclude based on what we have observed and to not just blindly read and accept. We hear how a man is made by the society and the people who make it, but I argue that man is made by his ability to stand against the same society and maintain his own ground, his own outlook. As many religious people say, all men are created equal, but we must also remember that even though all men may be created equal they are also created to be unique. It is not the process of creation, but the process of shaping that is more important. And this process can only be understood and perfected by shaping an individual with his most basic ability of rational thought.
Rational thought is something that can bring the world together. Though many people believe that rational thought is the demise of unity, it is the creation of individualism and the death of a singular aim, I believe that its different. Rational thought simply gives an individual to look at anything passively, it gives him the chance to make his own choice, and who is to say that his choice is wrong? There will always be people who will oppose, there will always be people who will revolt, but as long as they have a rational thought process not clouded by emotion or affected by external stimuli, then their own thought might be just as rational as the one they oppose.
People around us are used to being fed. They are used to being told what to do to such an extent that they now need to be told what to think. The human mind has become a sponge, it has devolved into something that only soaks and expels but does not care to understand or create. This has come to such a point that we people blindly believe what is told to us because, and only because we are unable to create our own idea. Inside all of us is the one thing that can set us free from this world which is ruled by what is around us. We have grown so accustomed to be influenced by what is around us that we refuse to look inside ourselves and comprehend. We let information enter and pass through without giving a second thought. And now it is time to think thrice.
There is an urgent need for people to wake up. There is a need for people to start thinking. I’m not saying stop talking and start doing, that’s a redundant statement when what we start doing is also fed to us. All I am saying is; start thinking, start questioning and stop swallowing. Unless we question we will never get the answers, and unless we have the answers we can never be considered intelligent. Our ability to question what is happening is slowly dying, and the time to save it is now. Question, what is around you and slowly the truth dawns, not the truth that someone else speaks, the truth that we discover for ourselves. And when we discover something ourselves, only then do we prize it beyond everything. The feeling of having found something, something unique, something different, this feeling makes us hold on to that discovery, and make it ours. Only when we realize this and keep discovering can we become more than what we are today. We can rise from this pit of apathy and blindness and we can finally rise to a new day and find for ourselves where our destiny lies. The human race will then become what it was meant to become, unique and sentient.
