When attending high school in Manila, by then adjusted to life in the Philippines more generally, coming from Southeast High, Bradenton (FL), I was caught up in a polarity.
One the one hand, I liked to talk and participate in conversations. I was not a wallflower.
On the other hand, I attached little weight to "opinions on the fly" and didn't think a conversation had to be about soliciting or offering opinions all the time, by which I include judgements.
I would push back at my teachers sometimes, especially in journalism class, saying things like "why are you asking me to have an opinion about a topic I barely know anything about? I'm just a dumb teenager without even a high school level of education yet. I wouldn't have any respect for my opinions if I hadn't really had time to do a lot of homework first, so why must I have them?"
Now of course it's obvious we judge constantly if not continuously and once in a judgemental mindset, it's hard to get from one moment to the next without rendering judgement on every significant aspect of one's circumstances.
However I'm circling that mindset as a pitfall, as a sign of an overheated and distracted "thought process" (in quotes because I speak more in metaphor than as if I knew something about how brains work).
What I've since come to is that the caricature of "being an individual" that's often peddled, is that of a know-it-all type with opinions on everything.
The opinions are allowed to be shallow.
It's more important to have an opinion on a matter, than to have a malformed one. The idea of "public debate" is we shape one another's opinions through discourse, but best to have a dog in the fight at least, or there's nothing to shape.
"Having an opinion on" is considered the opposite of "being apathetic about".
I would now counter that forming judgements and opinions need not be a high priority, especially during a time when you just want to investigate and not have a bias or prejudice get in the way.
You find the attitude of open mindedness and "not knowing" to be refreshing and adopt it whenever justified, and it's often justified, because the horizons of one's ignorance may indeed be vast.
