The art of developing opinions

Having one's own brand of opinions on a variety of topics is not in my sense totally innate. During our formative years and early adulthood, we tend to gravitate to references we know well, we trust or we just like, in order to form our own opinions. We certainly are still persuaded into seeing things in a certain way and remain easily influenced by those we follow or have some control on us. It's generally only in our twenties that we begin to form opinions that are our very own and don't have to rely on our various mentors and friends to think.

There's a large number of ways to arrive at that level; independent living may do it, marriage or living with a significant other may help too, business situations, managerial or working group experience will assist as will researching, reading, writing or just thinking. This is pretty much how many of us finally can “think for ourselves,” a feat easily said than done. In spite of all that, there still is a large number of people who desperately need to rely on third party's views to lead their own lives, and won't never make the passage from dependent into truly free individuals...