Why You Should NEVER be a Blind Follower of ANYONE
TO be fair, there are countless people, real life mentors, real life anti-mentors, real life positive and negative experiences, countless thinkers and writers and people from diverse fields, added with my own experiences since the time I have a memory that have shaped my world view.
BUT it does not mean I am a blind follower of ANY of them.
The moment you become a blind follower OF ANYONE, you lose your ability to question and the moment you lose your ability to question, you are doomed.
There is no one philosophy that is absolutely right. To buy into a group is to buy into an ideology and once you buy into an ideology you are no longer independent. Your mind stops functioning, only doing what the group tells you to do.
Bruce Lee developed Jeet Kune do because he realized, no single school of martial arts was correct and all were constrained by their own ideologies and not necessarily what actually worked best in a fight.
Life is also a “daily fight” in a way and if you close yourself to ideas that are actually useful and keep using what doesn’t work just because a group says that is the right thing to do, you will often end up doing more harm than good.
Once, under the compulsion of a particular situation, I ended up in a cult gathering, even though I didn’t want to be there.
There were two people “on stage.” One was a priest and the other was a “possessed” individual.
The priest was asking the spirit to leave the possessed guy. But the spirit was being a stubborn guest and refusing to leave the gentleman. Eventually, all of this was too much for me and I left the room after making up an excuse.
An hour later, the SAME possessed man was just gossiping with a friend and happily drinking tea! I thought to myself, how can a spirit give you a tea break? Then I realized maybe the spirit itself needed a bathroom break?
This isn’t the humorous bit though; the truly funny part is everyone in that gathering truly believed this spectacle!
In another meticulously designed experiment, researchers explored how individuals react to a potential hazard when influenced by the behavior of a group. The setup involved filling a room with smoke, not enough to cause harm, but certainly enough to cause concern.
The twist? Out of ten people in the room, only one was an actual test subject, unaware of the true nature of the experiment. The other nine were actors, briefed to downplay the situation.
As the room gradually filled with smoke, these actors did not respond. Crucially, however, they remained seated and continued working on their questionnaires, portraying normalcy despite the thickening smoke.
The real participant’s reactions were the focal point: when surrounded by the seemingly unconcerned actors, they remarkably often mimicked this behavior, ignoring the instinct to evacuate or report the danger, even though it could have been a FIRE.
This observation was different when the REAL participants found themselves alone in the smoky room.
Isolated, without any group influence, they quickly took decisive actions—either leaving the room immediately or seeking help.
Clearly, blindly following a group can lead you to some very terrible decisions!
There are benefits to groups, but they should not be constrained by narrow ideologies and should not be corrupted. I really don’t know if it’s possible though!
I am not saying I will never officially join a group in the future, but the circumstances have to be exceptional.
This is again a good time to remind you – Do not treat anything as dogma. Accept what works for you and reject what doesn’t OR at least adapt it to a way that works for you!
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” – Albert Einstein.
