A mind of its own

Family, community, society, all fill and form the developing mind of the young, that is, until that mind 'takes on a mind of its own' and temperament mixed with personality mixed with education mixed with all that other stuff that was stuffed into our skull forms our person, and that person can be new and free and developing, or it may be locked into its youthful formation. So too our spiritual development, for some that youthful development is it, locked into place, development or change doesn't seem to be an option. Why? Usually because those who were feeding stuff into our youthful minds did it in a way that made freedom and freethinking a negative trait that should be shunned. The glue that holds family, community, society together is tradition. Tradition places great value on the past, as it should in most instances, yet tradition by its nature 'wants you' to keep all that was put into your youthful mind as well enough, and warns that further free thoughts could be not only damaging to your well being, but to your eternal future. That is why Jesus said that if you follow Him, you may very well be separated from family, from tradition. To follow Jesus, one may very well have to break with tradition, and for the apostles, it was a break with traditional Judaism, for you and I, it may mean a break from all that stuff that formed our youthful minds. I shudder to think of the state of the minds of all those North Koreans that have been brainwashed from birth ... yes, the extreme example, yet it is easy for us on the outside to see that for them to cut from their tradition is the only way, but for them, a thought such as that is unthinkable.