Freethinkers

A few days back I read this quote by Leo Tolstoy on Facebook "Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but is essential for right thinking; where it is absent discussion is apt to become worse than useless."

I like the quote, but then a question came to my mind, are there any true freethinkers in our world? We get trained by our parents and mentors, schools, colleges, or society. All these entities knowingly or unknowingly condition our minds in a particular way. When we think we look at the world with that conditioned mind. So, how can we claim that we are independent or freethinkers? No doubt, there were many philosophers or writers who with their own imagination or thinking process created new ideas and philosophies, they tried to think out of the box and many of them were successful in producing some brilliant work that we still study even after centuries. We all can become freethinkers and break the boundaries of our conditioned minds, we all are born with this ability but we rarely use it, because whenever we try to go out of that well-defined secure box we either feel very uncomfortable and guilty, or we are scared about people's reaction and therefore, we reject those thoughts before even testing them for their validity.

So the question is, do we have any freethinkers? Are they some special people or anyone can be a freethinker? Anybody who is not afraid of challenging well-established ideas, who dares to propose something new that was never thought before, who can even challenge their own ideas and is not ashamed if proven wrong is a true freethinker. Even though they are the product of the same educational or social system through which we all go they dare to think something different. They dare to face the contradiction that exists in our lives and have the courage to express uncomfortable thoughts and pursue new ideas even if their outcome is unknown. It's not necessary that always these types of people will be successful or their ideas are accepted by society, but freethinkers don't worry about the acceptance of their thoughts, they just care to express them. Such freethinkers could be present in every family, every society, and every neighborhood, we all meet them and see them but just because they are not that famous don't notice them. If we can overcome our prejudices and biases any of us can become a freethinker. Not only do we restrict our thinking by all our inhibitions but while doing this we also fail to recognize and appreciate others' thoughts. We reject new ideas before even evaluating them. We need to overcome these inhibitions not only to think freely but also to appreciate the new ideas and philosophies of others. 

Let us try to make ourselves free from many inhibitions that stop us from welcoming new ideas. The same inhibitions stop us from questioning or criticizing age-old beliefs that we accept blindly in the name of tradition or culture. I know that it's not easy to get rid of them so easily, they have been part of our society for centuries, but without such reform, we cannot become freethinkers. Being a freethinker is better than being a blind follower, so let's give us a chance to become a freethinker.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]