1984

i picked up a copy of orwell's 1984 before flying home from texas. somehow i'd never read it. it's eerie how many of the book's themes have manifested. perhaps it's actually a virus introduced to the ruling elite through prep school english classes so that when they eventually come to power they exectute the prime directives without knowing it.

along these lines, i was introduced to a movie in texas called the secret. it's getting the same kind of exposure as "what the bleep do we know" did. the production is melodramatic and focuses on material gain (do you want a car, money, a relationship?) but its message intrigued me. the message is that we attract whatever we imagine. our thoughts form the world around us. if we think negatively, negative things will be attracted to us, and conversely if we visualize the positive, we will attract the positive. this is not a new idea. i've encountered it in my yogic and buddhist studies, but i was happy to have the idea refreshed.

the concept that we are what we imagine is simple but i find it profoundly challenging and sublime. if all that is necessary to bring everything i want into my life is the adoption of a positive state of mind, why the hell don't i just do it? maybe nike is onto something. i normally go about my life thinking that my thoughts are essentially private and inconsequential, little electrical storms between my ears. but, if in fact they're coming attractions, as einstein called them, then a bit of discipline is called for! if it's true that what i think will manifest, i should not want to think about awful things too much. but, the irony in this early 21st century is that when i turn on the tube, read the paper, am confronted with an advertisement, i find that what happens in my head most often is negative. my habit is to exclaim in disgust that everything's going to hell. the refrain at the diner i frequent for breakfast is "isn't that just awful." it seems to me that if we really want to change the world, we first have to toss out notions that we're inconsequential and replace them with beliefs that, despite our relative tinyness in the universe, we are intimately connected and individually powerful and that what we collectively think creates our collective future. in orwell's 1984, the most important goverment branch is the "thought police." the slightest indication, even a facial gesture, that indicates a person is thinking about anything anti-status-quo brings on their demise. it is as if those in power know the potential of thought to alter/create the future and so they do everything in their power to control it so that it meets their needs (to stay in power).

what's so different about today? our media makes sure we're kept in a state of perpetual fear which, not unlike the thought police, enforces conformity by repeatedly focusing us on the negative. it would be fascinating to study a place where news, internet, any communication, for some reason, was cut off for a period of time to see if the events in that place would turn for the better or worse. do the thinking patterns of humans tend toward the negative or the positive? if it is true that we are what we think, how amazing would it be if everyone managed to reject hatred—to simply refuse to think it—and instead, when confronted with the awful, responded with a declaration of what would be nicer? how different would the world be today had the united states responded to 9/11 this way?