How much does this thought frighten or upset you?

Thinking - real thinking - is hard sailing, and many of us never leave the dock.  We remain tethered by stout lines to our own unexamined beliefs.  Or, anchored to models of the world provided to us by others - a political party, our parents, socially prominent people like Hollywood stars, or perhaps the media.

The harbor is comfortable and safe, which is precisely why we stay there, but a ship is meant to sail, and the ship of thought will never move an inch until we weigh anchor and haul in the lines.  The only thing you'll ever see from the captive ship today is the same thing you saw yesterday...and the day before that.  You'll never see one bit more of the world than that.

It's very frightening to loosen our grip on our cherished beliefs.  We become disoriented.  We feel that we might capsize and drown somewhere in the vast sea of reality.  

If you know that you're a landlubber...that you lack the basic skills of intellectual seamanship...that you have no idea how to navigate the sea of ideas...the fear isn't unreasonable, but we're all called to a life of exploration and discovery.  We ought not to accept the notion that we've really done so when all we've actually done is to listen to someone else's travelog and then call it our own.