Why is life so difficult? Why are feelings of frustration, desperation, cynicism, and hopelessness so common? Why are people everywhere engaged in self-destructive behavior? Why, with so much technology and medicine, is health failing? Why does the world always seem to teeter on the brink of disaster? 

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​Fortunately, there are answers and hope. Daring to depart from the givens implanted in us since we were children and living life as if thinking matters can bring health, longer and more pleasant life, transform the World, and solve economic, political, religious, ethical, and social problems.  
 
Such optimistic goals may sound naïve. We're used to conceding that complex human problems are to be forever mired in conflicting opinions and disagreement. But before tossing in the towel, consider this. Every person on Earth agrees that 2+2=4, and that heavy things tossed into the air will fall to the ground.
 
So, we must admit, there is truth people can agree on.
 
Unfortunately, education, in itself, does not put us on the path to good thinking and truth. Although school may tell us about reason, it teaches what to think, not how to think.
 
Government-indoctrinated teachers are to be obeyed. Government-approved textbooks must be studied and memorized. This, effectively, herds us into consensus beliefs.
 
Children's brains are not developed sufficiently to know the difference between sophistry and reason. So, educational tidbits of fact blended with the venom of unreason create embedded truths children carry with them for life.

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​The society we all now bemoan is the society we grown brain-washed children have created.
 
The solution is to grow up and become adult free-thinkers, not children clutching the beliefs and dependency drilled into us as children.

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​It's truth ignored, violated, and obscured by belief-faith-opinion that's the cause of the world's woes.
 
For starters, clear the slate. Cast away all beliefs and replace them with knowledge and reason. That's the only path to truth.
 
We either find and embrace truth or suffer its inevitable consequences.
 
There is latent within each of us, obscured by day-to-day busyness and titillating distractions, a common gift of reason. Reason longs for and is quenched only by truth.
 
When we don't seek or get truth, we're left unfulfilled and empty, at least down deep in our heart of hearts. Absence of truth leaves us with no real sense of meaning or purpose beyond the next opportunity for gratification.
 
Rather than seek truth, people either defer to others or throw together comfortable opinions and beliefs about which, if they are polite, they keep to themselves. We make small talk about effects and reserve as private our views on the important issues of causes and true solutions.
 
The next meal, what to wear, how to impress others, what to watch next on Netflix, etc. are not the only things that should fill our minds.
 
Truth requires laying bare the taboo subjects comfortably secured by unearned beliefs we have never proven to ourselves. Belief is defined as: "The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another."
 
The big questions of existence--where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going--need answers, not beliefs. Government, the educational system, the news, Google algorithms, NASA, the medical industry, pharmaceuticals, mandated vaccines, Big Tech, the military, religions, and other institutions that are belief givers should not be implicitly trusted.
 
Anything these information controllers say is a conspiracy theory, disinformation, or in their debunking sites needs investigation. Think of anything going wrong in the world. Its cause can usually be traced to a belief promoted by these belief givers.
 
What we think regarding the important matters of life is not personal and private. Thinking dictates how we behave. How we behave has everything to do with whether we live a good or a miserable life, and even whether life on the planet will survive.
 
Chemists aren't free to believe just any combination of elements will yield plastics, bridge engineers aren't free to ignore the laws of physics, and accountants aren't free to believe that subtraction is the same as addition. There are reason, reality, and natural laws that must be abided.
 
Nevertheless, the powers that be want us to ignore these realities. They brainwash us with beliefs such as:

• ethics is relative
• treating symptoms cures diseases
• criminals are the victims
• strapping a bomb to our chest and blowing ourselves and others up in a mall shunts us to heaven
• stoning our children to death if they are disobedient, as commanded in the Bible, is the will of a loving Creator
• sending our young children to senseless wars is patriotic
• taxing us on how hard we work is fair
• using tax dollars to give NASA about $70 million/day that provides us nothing in return other than stories about how we are an insignificant speck in an infinite universe with them as our only hope if an asteroid heads our way
• and using tax dollars to pay politicians to be public servants, when their primary objective is self-service

 
The list of given beliefs goes on and on.
 
Duty requires ferreting out those beliefs, challenging them, and replacing them with knowing based on truth.

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​A free people need to know how to think, not what to think. But that's at cross purposes with governments that seek control by brainwashing us through sponsored education and partnership with media.

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​That's why today there's censorship, "fact-checking," "debunking," and internet algorithms that promote the approved government narrative by branding anything counter as "conspiracy theory."
 
We are designed with reason and conscience. But the powers that be want to supplant that with their own versions of reason and conscience forced upon us from the time we're infants.
 
From cradle to grave the government and media hold minds prisoner.

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A free and independent thinker does not need to join anything or subscribe to a doctrine or belief. The mind should become full of what we personally learn through observation, reason, conscience, free will, and understanding the basic laws governing our reality. A free and inquisitive mind comes to know, not surrender to, parrot, or be agents for what is spoon-fed.
 
SOLVER is a good acronym to guide becoming an independent critical thinker.
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​• Self-responsibility
• Open-mindedness
• Long-term view
• Virtuous intent
• Evidence  
• Reason 

Enacting such ideals could SOLVE the world's problems.  
 
Unfortunately, on the big matters of importance, people usually don't listen or learn. The masses tend to be an unteachable lot if it means overturning cherished beliefs. We develop an irrational and obstinate affinity to what already resides in our brains. We protect our minds from the threat of a new idea like we withdraw and protect our hand from a spinning saw blade.
 
But guarding our thoughts in this way makes little sense since we all, to begin, develop ideas about life quite by accident. Our ideas are formed by the influence of chance circumstances surrounding our childhood. As we come of age and become independent, these accidental ideas should hold no sacredness unless we have objectively examined them.
 
Challenging the givens and taking responsibility for our own mind and heart is an ethical duty. Doing so, not only offers a more peaceful and healthier life, but also can help nudge the world in a more hopeful direction.