Opinion Is Cheap. Thinking Is Not.

We live in the age of instant opinions.

Everyone has one. Most are formed quickly, expressed loudly, and defended emotionally. Social platforms reward certainty, not accuracy. Speed, not reflection. The result is a culture where reacting is mistaken for thinking.

But thinking is slow.

Real thinking requires sitting with incomplete information. It involves changing your mind in private before declaring anything in public. It demands the humility to say, “I don’t know enough yet.”

That posture is increasingly rare—and often punished.

Nuance doesn’t trend. Doubt doesn’t go viral. Calm disagreement doesn’t satisfy an algorithm trained on outrage. So we learn to perform confidence even when we haven’t done the work.

The cost is high.

When opinion replaces understanding, conversations collapse into camps. When identity fuses with belief, disagreement feels like attack. And when no one is willing to be wrong, no one gets closer to the truth.

Strong opinions are not the problem.

Unexamined ones are.

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