Psychic Trauma Rough Draft, Intro

Disclaimer: All events, characters, and opinions are subject to artistic license. Anything written here may or may not be based on what the author believes to be fact. As to what is fiction and what isn’t – the writer will never tell.

Dedicated to the gifted individuals this story is based on. You know who you are.

Intro

No one’s thoughts are really their own. For all the years I’ve spent peering into minds, I’ve never once seen a thought my subject hadn’t learned from someplace else. Every word in a person’s head is learned from somewhere, and people are not capable of true originality. Even those who assume themselves to be extremely independent are only using old ideas in a different combination. I find that disheartening. It’s all too easy for someone malicious to plant a thought, and very little of the population even realizes this to be the case. I honestly believe that it should be considered a criminal offense to force one’s ideas one someone else without their explicit consent. But no one’s listening to me. I’m only a young white female, and near the bottom of the hierarchical structure.

Of course, I’ve never expressed my ideas in such clear terms out loud. That would be a very foolish thing to do. If a person is presented with an idea that goes against the ideas already adopted, that person’s first instinct is to fight. And that often means punishing whoever presented the mental conflict. People don’t really care if something’s true. They only care if it already matches up with what they believe to be fact. And no one challenges established “facts.”

When I took my job at the bookstore, I came with the hope of finding someone, anyone, who went against the established grain. People who read have a wider variety of ideas in their mind, meaning that they have slightly more freedom than someone else might. I figured that people who spent a lot of time in a book store might just manage to reuse they thoughts they read in a more meaningful way. I might meet someone who is resistant to propaganda, social bullying, and overall behaving like a sheep. But I’ve found no one. Those who consider themselves to be intelligent happily swallow ideas by the bucket, and aren’t very discerning about which ideas they take and reject. Sure, they weigh ideas against things they already “know” to be true, but they don’t ever allow something new to challenge something familiar.

Realizing that, I supposed that perhaps someone who wrote down ideas for a living would be more mentally flexible. But I was disappointed once more. The first time an author came to visit the store, I had him sign something for me. That was an excuse to make eye contact, so that I could see into his mind. I searched his thoughts very rapidly, and I found, much to my disgust, that he was even more rigid than his readers. He wasn’t striving to create new ideas – he hoarded thoughts, carefully weighed them against what he figured his readers wanted, then arranged his ideas to be pleasing. He made a living off re-branding the same few ideas.

I feel dreadfully depressed most of the time. I hate to watch people devour whatever media some wealthy person thought should be popular. What the average consumer doesn't realize is that very media is intentionally designed to change a person’s thought patterns. It’s created to make people more compliant, therefore keeping the people who are in control in control. It minimizes the chances of a governmental overthrow, or for the poor to fight their way to prosperity. The more propaganda a person ingests, the less independent they become. Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter much what that propaganda is about. The very act of believing something just because someone says so is giving up your control as an individual.

Of course, I guess I can’t blame people for not seeing this problem. They really don’t stand a chance. We are all conditioned from the time we are very young to give up our will. A child must obey his parents, or risk punishment. Failure to comply means being shamed, even if he didn’t mean to make the mistake. His thoughts don’t matter, only that he didn’t do exactly as expected.

We are all told that we are forced to attend school as children for the sake of our education. As true as that may be, they fail to explain exactly what we are being taught. Math, science, and reading are all used to instill the idea that we should do whatever is asked.If something is placed in front of us to place in our minds, we have to do it. We are given bad marks if we try to look at the old idea in a new way. All that we are allowed to care about is “correct” and “incorrect.” And that becomes exactly how we all weigh ideas. And the practice of accept something just because it’s handed to us conditions us to accept other things too. If your friends say a movie is good, you believe it. And you ignore all those little things that made you feel uncomfortable. The things retraining your thoughts for the worse. The things making you less able to regulate your impulses, and discourage you from thinking critically about your actions.

Watching all this causes me to wonder if I really am better off than the rest of the population. I might have a clearer understanding of how people are manipulated, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can avoid it. Even though I have an unusual power, my thoughts are still very easily swayed. If I see an image meant to turn me on, I get turned on. If I read something written persuasively, I tend to believe it, if only for a few minutes. And I know that I can’t help but weigh new information with my opinions, rather than taking all facts for their own merit. I’m inclined to disbelieve something because it challenges the way I currently think. Likewise, I’m more likely to swallow input that doesn’t challenge me in any way.

Sometimes, I think that living as a human being alone subjects us all to manipulation. If there’s an escape for this, I haven’t found it yet. I’ve mostly lost my hope for something better a long time ago, but I refuse to stop looking. Because, the moment I quit is the moment I let the manipulators win. And I’m not going to let that happen.