The Wandering Farmer (an feirmeoir fánach)

My Grandpa Carroll had a simple expression he repeated so often that it stuck with many of us- it was “Do your own thinking!” or sometimes…”Always do your own thinking!” I think he trusted that a Carroll was usually pretty sharp and we’d often come to decent conclusions if we learned to do our own calculations. He was famously good at math and estimations and trusted that giving a good look to something would always be worth his time.

He always said it in a way that was rich with implied substance and meaning. He really wanted us to not take others’ answers as gospel- that tradition, hierarchy, and pomp or circumstance were not a good reason to abandon your own compasses and faculties. Laziness, lack of moral depth, lack of a willingness to not run your own numbers, are all unacceptable.

Steve Jobs famously said:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

My Grandpa Carroll was on to it already- that living with the results of other people’s thinking – could be a trap. You have to trust that your faculties are on par, or higher, than the common results reached by wider society. It doesn’t mean that I view my views on science as better than a scientist’s, or that my hot take on a complex topic will be superior to an expert’s, but it is to say that if I genuinely think through a tough topic, whether it’s one of morality or some intellectual issue, I can hope to reach a conclusion as good or better than taking the societal average answer as a fair guide.

What I try to pass on as I quote my grandfather, too, is that you must have humility that your sought-out answers are not someone else’s. After all, YOUR personal revealed truth is someone else’s “others’ dogma.” This is not to say there are no moral absolutes or objective truths- but that room for the single individual to analyze and make their own informed choices, is a right, a privilege, and a responsibility.