I want to add a few more thoughts to yesterday’s post on conformism that I have been ruminating on today.
First, to be clear, while I agree with Paul Graham that independent-mindedness drives most new ideas, I think there are very real reasons for being more conventional-minded, particularly, in today’s society. One, some are comfortable not creating new ideas, but rather existing in the confines of a society that’s already been established. I’d argue this is totally reasonable, as long as you are willing to give a space for others to create and distribute new ideas (and aggressively fight those with which you disagree). Second, conventional-minded people are more agreeable and, by default, are more well-liked. Moreover, they are more concerned with a desire to be well-liked, or a desire for approval, which frankly is totally relatable. The problem to be aware of is that it may also lead them to conform to falsehoods to avoid anxiety and discomfort. Or it may just be that some conventional-minded people find truth in the old adage “ignorance is bliss”.
I think it’s important to first try and be aware of where on the spectrum you are. I personally do not want to be at the extreme of either end, but I know I want to be more of an independent-thinker. If this is like you, today’s piece will be relevant.
How To Think for Yourself can be summed up in three parts: The first part of the piece recaps the concept of independent-minded versus conventional-minded people, the second part discusses techniques and changes you can take to begin thinking for yourself, and the third part looks at the structure of independent-mindedness, and Graham outlines its three key components and how you can improve upon them (if, at all).
Part I
The entire essay dovetails nicely with the piece I covered yesterday on conformism, though it focuses specifically on the independent-minded. There are so many thoughtful nuggets sprinkled throughout that had me reflecting on my experiences and my way of thinking.
Graham claims that there are certain jobs that are better suited for the independent-minded:
There are some kinds of work that you can't do well without thinking differently from your peers. To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel.
There's room for a little novelty in most kinds of work, but in practice there's a fairly sharp distinction between the kinds of work where it's essential to be independent-minded, and the kinds where it's not...Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I suspect most people's unconscious mind will answer that question before their conscious mind has a chance to. I know mine does.
As I am exploring what my next role may look like, this part resonated a great deal. Perhaps some of my frustration in past jobs was a misalignment in the work I was doing—did I want to be doing work where it was essential to be independent-minded? I wasn’t so sure.
I have previously spoken about my imposter syndrome, particularly my perfectionist tendencies that lead to self-doubt in my abilities, but Graham talks about the opposite behavior that is often seen in the conventional-minded:
Conventional-minded people don't like to think of themselves as conventional-minded. And in any case, it genuinely feels to them as if they make up their own minds about everything. It's just a coincidence that their beliefs are identical to their peers'…There may even be a phenomenon like Dunning-Kruger at work, where the most conventional-minded people are confident that they're independent-minded, while the genuinely independent-minded worry they might not be independent-minded enough.
Funny enough, upon reading this, my reaction was one of further worry—Am I really even independent-minded or have I been too confident that I am, meaning that I am conventional-minded?
Part II
I started to feel more compelled that I was in fact independent-minded once Graham detailed a few techniques practiced by independent-minded people, as I immediately recognized some of these behaviors as some things I did.
Being less aware of what conventional beliefs are is a foolproof way to be more independent-minded. This is probably one of the hardest to follow in practice because often people care what others think of them. I am certainly guilty of this. But the times where I have been unaware that my beliefs on a topic are different than what the conventional wisdom is, I have been much more willing to speak courageously about my true feelings and true beliefs. It is super powerful.
Graham’s point about who you surround yourself with is incredibly valid:
If you're surrounded by conventional-minded people, it will constrain which ideas you can express, and that in turn will constrain which ideas you have. But if you surround yourself with independent-minded people, you'll have the opposite experience: hearing other people say surprising things will encourage you to, and to think of more…It also works to go in the other direction: as well as cultivating a small collection of independent-minded friends, to try to meet as many different types of people as you can…But by different types of people, I don't mean demographically different. For this technique to work, they have to think differently.
How do you find these people that think differently? I think there are a few ways. Colleges and universities are the best ways, even if, as Graham argues, they no longer provide the same level of free expression and free thought as they used to be. Graham suggests changing your location may not be fruitful, though I have found it to be helpful, not necessarily in finding independent-minded people, but in finding people who think differently. Because of culture and demographics and conformity, people tend to start thinking similar to the people within a given location. Thus, often leaving a location is a great way to shift your perspective and/or prevent it from groupthink. I’ve found this helpful as I’ve moved from suburban New Jersey to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Seattle, to New York City, to Charlotte.
If you are independent-minded, once you find those few people who are like you, you will fall in love with the conversations you can have with those people:
Fortunately you don't have to spend all your time with independent-minded people. It's enough to have one or two you can talk to regularly. And once you find them, they're usually as eager to talk as you are; they need you too.
When I read this line, I instantly connected to it, and immediately thought of the few people that were the independent-minded people in my life. The level of thoughtfulness of the conversations, the freedom to learn something new, and the ability to discuss different subjects for hours on end are luxuries I enjoyed with only those friends. It is hard to describe how intellectually exciting those conversations are to someone who has never experienced them, and, in fact, I often find conventional-minded people bore easily of these conversations.
Another technique in helping stay independent-minded is a healthy dose of skepticism. Rather than assuming or accepting things as true, I often implicitly ask why? in my head. I always wondered if it was only me doing that, and if I was just always being overly cautious, but Graham’s piece confirms that I’m not alone. I would venture to guess that those who rely more heavily on system 2 than system 1 are likely to be more independent-minded as well.
Part III
This gets to the heart of the essay where Graham outlines the three components of independent-mindedness: fastidiousness about truth, resistance to being told what to think, and curiosity. It’s also the part that solidified to me that I am on the independent-minded side of the spectrum because I related to parts of all three of these. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what fastidiousness about truth really was, but the following passage from Graham perfectly described how I have felt all my life:
They're willing to have anything in their heads, from highly speculative hypotheses to (apparent) tautologies, but on subjects they care about, everything has to be labelled with a carefully considered degree of belief. The independent-minded thus have a horror of ideologies, which require one to accept a whole collection of beliefs at once, and to treat them as articles of faith.
When I read this, it was so gratifying to realize I am not alone. Though I have a few independent-minded friends, I am not sure if they share the same degree of fastidiousness about truth that I do. One additional plus to this skill is that it allows me to have great empathy because I am able to consider so many perspectives and beliefs all at once. It also allows me to have nuance and qualify beliefs and arguments and claims very well, which gives me an ability to “see both sides”. The downside, at least for me, is that I can often see varying degrees of nuance, which leads to crippling nuance, and as a result, I struggle to have conviction because there are so many beliefs on any given subject in my head.
The promising part about this component is that it can be learned and it can be done relatively easily—by thinking about it and wanting it.
The second component is resistance to being told what to think, and the key part here is that independent-minded people see this as a positive. As Graham puts it,
It's not mere skepticism, but an active delight in ideas that subvert the conventional wisdom, the more counterintuitive the better.
Thus, ideas that are contrarian are those that independent-minded people relish and thrive on. Graham makes a connection to ideas that when you first hear them make you laugh—which reminded me of Bitcoin in the early days. Those who are independent-minded had the conviction to believe in it even when they were laughed at and doubted and that conviction came from it being a counterintuitive bet.
This quality is the one of the three I struggle the most with, and that makes sense because it’s also the one that is the most innate. The best way to increase this is to surround myself with other independent-minded people who then increase my exposure to these ideas.
The third component is curiosity, and this is correlated closely with independent-mindedness. Those who are deeply curious are independent-minded, and those who are not are conventional-minded.
One might be wondering then, how can you increase curiosity?
To start with, you want to avoid situations that suppress it. How much does the work you're currently doing engage your curiosity? If the answer is "not much," maybe you should change something.
The most important active step you can take…is probably to seek out the topics that engage it. Few adults are equally curious about everything, and it doesn't seem as if you can choose which topics interest you. So it's up to you to find them. Another way to increase your curiosity is to indulge it, by investigating things you're interested in. Curiosity is unlike most other appetites in this respect: indulging it tends to increase rather than to sate it. Questions lead to more questions.
In a recent piece, I talked about doing what I love, but Graham argues the secret sauce could be doing what I’m curious about.
Putting it All Together
For those looking to become more independent-minded, the promising thing is that because all three components work together, you need not develop all three to become more independent-minded:
Interestingly, the three components can substitute for one another in much the same way muscles can. If you're sufficiently fastidious about truth, you don't need to be as resistant to being told what to think, because fastidiousness alone will create sufficient gaps in your knowledge. And either one can compensate for curiosity, because if you create enough space in your brain, your discomfort at the resulting vacuum will add force to your curiosity. Or curiosity can compensate for them: if you're sufficiently curious, you don't need to clear space in your brain, because the new ideas you discover will push out the conventional ones you acquired by default.
Because the components of independent-mindedness are so interchangeable, you can have them to varying degrees and still get the same result. So there is not just a single model of independent-mindedness. Some independent-minded people are openly subversive, and others are quietly curious. They all know the secret handshake though.
The varying degrees of independent-mindedness rings incredibly true. I would describe myself as a quietly curious independent-minded person, and it’s why I also described myself as more passive in yesterday’s piece.
For me, my fastidiousness about truth is my superpower, which outweighs my lack of resistance to being told what to think. To continue to push the boundaries of independent-thinking, I will continue to seek out communities of people that think differently than me—those that are independent-minded and not—but intentionally surround myself with more independent thinkers to increase my exposure to those ideas.
I still struggle with having a desire to be liked and seeking approval, and at times I still care about what others think of me, but if I can continue to be less aware of conventional beliefs, I can continue to become more independent-minded. Or so I think. I’m still a little skeptical. But hopefully that’s just the independent-mindedness in me talking.