Do Your Own Thinking
Steven G. Fullwood

 August 20, 1997

Do your own thinking. And I'll do mine.

There are instances when we can combine our thoughts about an issue, a situation, an idea, but only if we agree on what our responsibilities are -- first and foremost to ourselves. It's vital we move with our own authority. We have to give ourselves permission to think, without depending on others to do it for us. We have to inhabit our own minds without apology, without regret. We must trust ourselves.

Everything you do affects me, and vice versa. It may seem as if individual thought and action have little or no consequence for the village, but it's only because most of us have been taught to look at life with one eye. The other eye, the one welded shut -- no penetrating light, crusted over with tears -- keeps watch differently. It is the measure of our willful innocence, our inability to be honest, our lack of esteem.

Were you to open your eye suddenly, the light would blind you momentarily, like a flash of lightning. Still, it is better to open it and look, letting light broaden your perspective about what is it you are, what you came here to do, and to be accountable for your life.

Let's assume you do not open that closed eye. Colors recede into the background on a lovely summer day, because you can only think of getting to work on time. The open eye is stunted, undeveloped and quietly reminds the viewer something is missing, something vital in the picture presented. Lack is a correct assessment, but of what? Instead of questioning this feeling further, many of us prefer to act like nothing is wrong. We return to that willful innocence -- and quickly -- before the sinking feeling of incompleteness sets in.

If you've been taught all your life through your education, television, magazines, your peers, your parents and relatives, that relief can be purchased, you'll find a way to buy it. A car, home, nice clothes, a good job are good things, but what one might ask is: what do they represent in one's life?

If your culture threatens you with violence when you think dissenting thoughts about those "good" things, that questioning will be key to your intellectual, emotional and spiritual development. In this culture, most of our eyes remains shut because it is profitable for plenty of people, businesses and, of course, the government to keep them closed. Others do your thinking, because you've relinquished responsibilities to your own intellectual development.

But like everything alive, it changes. Restlessness sets in and in seeking a different "thing," we run to the gym, the store, college, wherever to satisfy this craving for something. The eye remains shut unless one is willing to say, "I do not know and/or I was wrong. Terribly wrong. But that's okay, because I learned something." To be honest after years of denial could paralyze and debilitate the viewer. But if the eye opens with even the slightest want for understanding, with the knowledge that there is something else -- that I am uncomfortable, but I will continue ahead, I have a context, a past, and a future firmly rooted in the past -- then maybe, just maybe, the eye won't shut back up. Natural lubrication will allow it to look about for something else, different point of view. Alienation leads the viewer back into herself and she is no longer trapped by her culture. She finds herself and a rich heritage to draw from. She stops blaming God for her life. She does her own thinking.

Another way of opening the closed eye is having it suddenly, violently opened for you. Men, women and children whose closed eyes have been struck, pried open by fate and circumstance, wildly look about to connect with something, because whatever happened to them hurt, and they cannot deny it. They look to someone to acknowledge the link we all share. Something breathing and being. Perhaps you.

But with only one of your eyes open, you can't see these others. How can you? You can't afford to. Your one open eye is most likely working overtime to keep the other eye shut, as to avoid change. And you know, there's really nothing hiding in anyone's closet, except for change. Change is the only monster we can't control.

With your two eyes open, your heart would surely break, maybe move you to do something other than not look. Or maybe not. At the very least, you cannot escape into not seeing it, or fail to see your part in someone else's plight.

Yes, everyone has her own lot in life. Some universal purpose to which all must abide by and to which we must surrender. Clearly, life would be, could be something, wonderfully alive. If we decide to be courageous and open both eyes, maybe then we could see it, and not run from pain, but learn the lesson it brings.

Staring at something with one eye can make you mad. A view lacking in coherence, in collectiveness, in balance. Physically, some of us only have one eye. Most of us have two. Some have no vision to speak of. The key is to know the difference.