I find myself curious about always wanting to and sometimes having to explain why I think differently than others.

Some people say they admire me for this, others think I’m crazy, and others think I’m nasty.

The complete explanation of my ideas about independent thinking would be too long and twisted for this space or your eyes and ears.

I’ll say I always had to think for myself, I had no choice, and there was nobody around to teach me how to do it.

I joke about it. I’m from the Beavis &Butthead school because I am stupid and thus free to think. Because I am different, I have to think for myself. Because I was never taught to think, I can sometimes think.

I’ve written five books about dogs, five of them best-sellers.

As a result, kind and well-meaning people send me books and links all the time, just about every day.

Others text or e-mail me to tell me about books they bought for me or think I should buy.

I appreciate this; it is nothing but generous. But I have to explain why I never accept these gifts if I can, or read them if they arrive. I hate for good people to waste their money sending me things I can’t or won’t use and would rather not receive.

I make a lot of librarians happy. But it doesn’t seem right to me.

It’s not just dog books but spiritual books, nature books, animal books, and the many stories of men and women and their beautiful dogs.

People assume that because I write something, I must be interested in hearing other people’s ideas about it. I admit that is sometimes true, but it is not, in my mind, a way to nourish ideas in my own head.

I have looked at some of these books people send me and even read some. They have often been helpful and informative. But I need to explain my own (as usual, different and odd) ideas about getting other people’s opinions and accepting them without offering anything in return. I think it’s wrong.

I hate bringing all these books to the library or giving them away. I also don’t like seeing them piled up in boxes all over the house because I can’t possibly read them all.

But there is a reason for this disconnect.

First, I feel strongly about choosing my books.

I want my ideas to come out of my head, life, family, animals, and strange mind.

I have this strong idea (and a very unusual one) that when I take other people’s opinions and absorb them while having nothing to contribute or add to them, then I will become one-dimensional in my mind and lose track of what are my ideas and what are other people’s ideas.

In the past few months,  several people have become angry with me for politely declining book gifts and other people’s opinions.

I have my own ideas about dogs, love, spirituality, busybodies, and know-it-alls. People often suggest I am wrong, rude, rigid, ungrateful, nasty, or harsh.

But when someone reads my ideas, they can know that they are my ideas, not anyone else’s.

Many people gracefully accept my feelings and do not send me things without my agreement or approval. Many people just send me things, certain I’ll be happy to get them.

But I’m not, as a rule.

I hate having to dispose of or give away something other people have gone to the trouble of paying for, but I have no time to read them and no place to put them.

I have a massive pile of books – about a dozen right now – that I have bought or chosen and can’t wait to read. None of them are about dogs, donkeys, farms, or nature.

I read literary novels, British mysteries, American history, and novels about family,  American mysteries, immigration to America,  the American Revolution, the Civil War the minds of animals, and animal research.

My bookshelves are stacked with books about those things, they are barely out in print for seconds before I jump on them like a slice of hungry-smelling meat. Maria has long given up trying to buy me books.

I don’t wait for the ones that I want.

I love those fat history books by accomplished biographers. I’ve been waiting for years for Robert Caro to finish his fantastic biography of Lyndon Johnson. It’s beginning to look like I might not make it before I die.

Too bad, that’s what I like to read, not my neighbor’s story about his wonderful rescue dog.

I also believe strongly that I should choose the ideas I want to study and borrow; I know how to do that. I believe in learning and expanding my consciousness, but it’s not up to other people to tell me what ideas I should read; that’s my job, and I take it seriously.

Please don’t be angry with me if I can’t or don’t wish to accept other people’s ideas or ideas you happen to like. Or if I can’t accept your gifts or do justice to them.

People get on me all the time for not being nice.

But I am pretty nice, as far as men go,  just not to people trying to tuck other people’s ideas into my chaotic head.

I just got a beautiful e-mail recommending a book on the art of flowers. I’m grateful. I do listen to other people. I do listen to other ideas.

I bought the book.

I got a tip-off about some great new British Mystery series. I appreciate it. That was an e-mail. Nobody spent any money or bought anything and mailed it to me without asking.

People send me ideas about new Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon programs. I am grateful for that; sharing streaming has become a kind of new American community.

It’s fun and useful. But those are programs, not ideas.

But mostly, I cling to making my ideas mine and creating them by myself. I imagine they will be disappointed, even angry, to think their generosity was cast aside.

People may think me rude about that. I think I’m learning to think for myself; the most important sign of that is speaking up for myself honestly and authentically.

I don’t need people to give me presents or send me other people’s ideas. I need people to read my ideas and think about them. That’s what I do for a living. That’s the boundary., the line. That’s the payoff.

But I can’t help it if people are unhappy with me; this is America, 2023, the age of social media, where sick and angry people roam digital webs like buffalos on the plains, thirsty for people to correct, dislike, or object to.

I am disgusted by the idea of the left and the right, the red and the blue, the rural and the urban. It’s as if there are only one or two ways of looking at the world. How ignorant and narrow-minded is that

People who label themselves progressives or conservatives have given up on the idea of original thought and ideas. They think what they are told to think and see little or nothing beyond them.

Ellen Bass is an author who writes about how women who survive childhood sexual abuse can heal. This thought below struck me; I related to it right away and saw its truth:

“Thinking for yourself and making your own decisions can be frightening. Letting go of other people’s expectations can leave you feeling empty for a time. And yet seeing yourself as an independent adult who can stand up for your own choices frees you to accept yourself as you are.”

How can we be independent adults if we only read books that liberals like or hate the people Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump tell us to hate?

Our civic politics have been a painful exercise in what happens when we let other people choose our ideas and stuff them into our heads. I wish Joe Biden would retire gracefully and leave the fray to others, but I will say this for him. He isn’t much of a hater.

I may be an odd duck and a thinker with different ideas, but I promise I will die as an independent adult who can stand up for my own choices and accept myself for who I am, as so many women (and many men)  have had to do for so many years.

I told a bookseller I didn’t wish to buy a new book on climate change that promised on the cover that we are all doomed to be boiled alive by heat and soon. But everyone loves these books, she said.

We can’t keep it in stock.

No, I answered; everyone doesn’t—anyone with a label that shapes their ideas pledges to talk only to the converted. People who call themselves progressive can’t wait to read the book because they already know and believe everything.

The people who believe climate change is a hoax are not about to be influenced by a climate change activist who is out to scare people, so they will buy his book. It will be a best seller in one fenced-off corner of the world.

One day, people may once again think for themselves, and our world will change.

Let’s see how many farmers and climate change deniers rush to the bookstore and ask for the book. Not one like that has come in yet, she said. “Think wrongly,” wrote Dorris Lessing, “if you please, but in all cases, think for yourself.”

That’s one of my missions. I fight for that all the time.

Accepting other people’s ideas without thought, discussion, or argument is accepting the closing of the mind.

Just look at what this has done to our precious democracy. We are bedeviled and under siege by fools, liars,  and thieves.

I believe that to embrace and accept dogma and ideology without thinking about it or adding my ideas is to be mentally comatose and spiritually docile.

Just look at the news.

I reject unwanted or unapproved gifts to keep my mind alive. I want to do that, it is both personal and private.

I have found that I have better ideas if I think for myself rather than scrambling all over the Internet, looking for ideas to be fed to me.

I don’t care just what others think about most things. I watch what I think first and what others think afterward.

Nobody ever suggested I grow flowers and take pictures of them. That was my idea, inside and out. And that, I think, is why it sometimes works.

I understand that this idea confuses some people, most very well-meaning, and angers others. I guess that’s my job. I am a writer, not a siphon or a receptacle for other people’s thoughts.

Just because I love a book and got something from them doesn’t mean you will. I will give you credit for coming up with your ideas; please return the favor.

For all his troubles, Henry David Thoreau, an early influence of mine, thought for himself, annoying almost  everyone else to the bitter end.

Thoreau defined wisdom as living according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, kindness, and trust. Every path but our own is the path of fate, he wrote. Keep on your track, then.

And in our open and connected world, that means standing up for that and fighting for it.

I’m getting used to that and being proud of myself for feeling that way. Being a freak is never simple or easy.

But it has its rewards.