Warning: this shit is way too long.
Free thought.
You think it exists.
You believe you have it.
But you don’t.
What decisions you made today?
What clothes you wore?
What cereal you ate?
What songs you listened to?
Take a moment and think about these questions.
You made some decisions.
But
Are those decision truly ‘yours’?
I say, they are not.
But you might say, WTF Prayas, what are you saying? Are you saying the song I listened to while on my way to school weren’t chosen by me? You think I’m dumb or something? How could you possibly expect me to believe this?
*sniff sniff
Have you been smoking weed lately? You high? Talking all this crazy shit.
/ Prayas: (possibly thinking and smiling inside), As always, let me explain.
A. No I don’t think you are dumb. Well, actually we all are up to some extent, aren’t we? ; )
B. I wish I smoked weed, (that would be cool) but sadly, I don’t smoke lol.
But I am saying this:
You didn’t choose the song you wanted to listen on your way to school.
Of course, the elephant in the room is, “But, how can that be??“
Here; You think you chose to listen that Blackbear song (I enjoy Balckbear, he is an awesome artist, I love his songs and his style; go check him out ; )
Um, anyways, so you think you chose to listen to that particular song on your way to school. You would like to believe that you picked that song among millions of other songs in the world, entirely because You liked it.
That’s wishful thinking.
And I don’t blame you.
I would like to believe it as well. Because: it gives you a sense of control in your life. You think you are in control of the type of music you listen to. You think you call the shots; you make the decision as to which song gets to stay in your ears. You are the boss here.
Felt powerful yet?
Exactly.
Thinking that you chose that song makes you feel good about yourself. It makes you feel you have control of things in this infinitely random world of ours. You feel you actually have some power in life, in a world where the vast majority of us live utterly powerless lives.
You think you actually have at least some control, some power in life.
We live our whole lives, utterly powerless and with no control to what happens to us. We are like leaves drifting down a stream with no control over where the river will lead us to.
Control.
It’s an interesting thing.
It’s a powerful.
It’s sexy. It’s desirable.
We all want it.
But do we have it? No.
Did I choose how the economy is doing? Did I choose the country I was born into? Did I choose that the bus came late? Did I choose my parents? Did I choose that the store was closed just when I need to photocopy some papers? Did I choose that my mom would be in a bad mood this morning? Did I choose it rained today?
See, we live in a world full of uncertainty and randomness. You have no control over the very beginning of your life. Did you choose to be born? Did you choose your parents?
Ever since your birth, you have been bumbling and stumbling over the random events that life throws at you, over which you have absolutely no control over. Heck, you were born into a world you didn’t choose anything about, into a predetermined life, a predetermined set of values, a predetermined family, into a predetermined society and in a predetermined timeline. (World war casualties be like: the fuck? we didn’t choose to be born during early 1900s lol).
You are powerless.
You feel powerless.
And that, my friend, is not a good feeling.
*on this particular note, I occasionally fantasize about having absolute power in life. Like I imagine myself getting late for a bus and when I get in, all the seats have been taken. I casually move to a seat and tell the person sitting there to get up and move, just so that I can sit. And the dude does exactly as I say! without any question (it’s fucking hilarious lol). But it makes me feel good. Almost invincible; that the world runs on my command. I feel powerful at last. And as you might have guessed it, I fantasize about it because I don’t have any real from of power in my real life. (I mean yeah, I could try telling a random person to just move so I can sit like a boss; I just have to prepared for the slaps and the kicks lol).
#talk about being weird. ; )
So, the point is; we (I mean, most of us) are pathetic powerless creatures, dangling on strings of fate over which we have no control over.
But that’s the point!
WE WANT CONTROL.
Simply because in reality, we don’t have any.
So, we trick ourselves into believing we ‘chose’ stuff in our life, no matter how pathetic it might be.
You trick yourself into believing that you chose to listen to that song.
Because it makes you feel good about yourself.
Pay attention to the words I use.
You trick yourself into believing…
“Trick”
Yes, it’s a trick. An illusion. It’s all a lie.
But it’s an illusion like no other.
See, the magician plays trick on the crowd, he plays tricks on you to make you believe in things that do not exist. But this particular illusion that we are talking about here, is insidious and beautiful that in this illusion, there is no magician, you play tricks on yourself.
You are the magician and you yourself, are the audience.
Sounds strange?
You bet it does ; ) and that’s why it’s so beautiful and strong. And that’s the reason, we don’t realize it.
You know you are believing in an illusion; that it’s a trick; that it’s all a lie, but you still believe it.
Ironic huh?
It’s the craziest thing in the world. To know it’s a lie and still believe it. That’s a level of paradox that is just out of this fucking universe. Yet, it’s so strangely beautiful that you don’t even want to question it. It’d do intricate that you just want to experience it in an awe, and appreciate it’s beauty. Be it the beauty of an illusion.
We were side tracked by the whole grandeur of the thing. But we must not lose the sight of our goal here my friend, so bear with me ; )
So, the point is, It’s all an illusion. You believe that you chose the song because you ‘want’ to believe that you did so. Deep down, you know you are fooling yourself, but let yourself be fooled by yourself; just as a father lets his daughter believe that he is a dinosaur while they play. It’s almost um… as they say, CUTE! lol. (read the word cute in a Japanese anime girl voice).
It’s almost like, the whole illusion of control is a nice little bubble and you and I are inside it. It’s so comfy inside, that the bubble that you get accustomed to it.
But the bubble is transparent, so you can see the world outside the bubble from the inside. So, you see the world “outside”, you see the truth that the world is not a giant happy bubble and that it’s not as comfy as your own little bubble. And that your bubble is an illusion.
So, now you have two choices; It’s like the fucking The Matrix movie, if you know what I’m talking about ; )
Either you break the bubble, inhale the truth and live in a world which is perhaps less comfortable than your precious little bubble.
Or,
Ignore it. Trick yourself into believing your bubble is real and live inside it, happy and comfortable for the rest of your life?
Which one would you choose?
I know,
I choose the bubble.
You chose the bubble.
We all chose the bubble.
Why?
Because the bubble is comfortable and happy. And we always chose the peace of mind over the truth.
It’s a protective mechanism that keeps us from having an existential crisis and frying our tiny brains lol.
Oof! so much work just to make a point.
So, till now we have concluded that:
A. Control is an illusion. An illusion we created to trick ourselves.
B. It’s such an intricate and beautiful illusion that you don’t want to break free from it.
So okay, now that we have established the fact that control is an illusion. and thinking (more like believing) that you made that choice and have control over your decisions is a lie.
So, if you don’t have the control over your choices then the question remains…
THEN WHO DOES?
(damn, this thing is starting to sound like a dystopian science fiction novel lol)
And answering that question, leads us to the final point of this long ass article. And then we can prove the original statement (for which you prolly suspected that I was high ; ), the statement that started this whole thing in the first place. Remember the statement?
Statement: [that you didn’t choose that song, you had no control over it, more like someone else chose it for you].
Ah so about the second part of the statement. See, I don’t write about things that I don’t know and have not done extensive research on. So prepare for the Truth! (That sounds like something a cult leader would say doesn’t it? ; ) and did I tell you I fantasize about being a cult leader too lol, it’s so much power you won’t believe me!)
So… let me explain further.
So, control is an illusion.
But up until a few month ago, I myself used to believe that I had “control” over the choices I made in life. That I choose the song that plays. (Ah, how naive I was).
So clearly, I was and still am, inside the illusion of my bubble.
But that’s beside the point of this argument.
Anyways, so “Who gets to choose it for us if we are not in control of our own decisions?“
Great question lol.
The answer?
In short: EVERYONE ELSE.
See, we like to believe that free thought exists; that we can think individually, we control our decisions, that we are the sailors of our own boats.
But that’s never really the case.
The reason is because we are influenced. We are influenced in every shape, form and color imaginable.
We are influenced by the society, advertisements that we see all day long, the collective moral compass, our friends, popular culture, movies, music and a million other things.
These factors are so deeply ingrained in our day to day life that all, by that I mean each and every one of our decisions in life are heavily influenced by one or more of these factors.
So, in that sense, none of our decisions is truly ours.
Pause.
And think about it for a second lol.
I recently noticed (well not exactly me but my friends noticed) that I cuss a lot when I speak.
This made me wonder. Why is that? I don’t cuss in my home, not even in school when I’m speaking in my native language. But the moment I switch to English, there are flying fucks, bitches and assholes coming out of my mouth (ah this was fun to write lol. Then the other day, as I was talking to one of my good friends, and then it hit me.
I realized that, I cuss a lot while I’m speaking in English is because of the type of music I listen to.
See, I listen to a lot of rap music, and American hip hop artists like Kanye, Jay Z, Kendrik, Drake, Travis Scott, Logic and Wiz (btw if you were wondering, these are my favorites) all cuss a LOT in their music. And rap, by origin and culture, is a very explicit in nature. And I listen to these songs all the fucking time (see what I did there?) that, it was influencing the way I was speaking, and I didn’t even realize it.
I thought I at least choose the way I spoke. But nah man, that too wasn’t my choosing. I was all influenced, heavily, without even realizing it.
Are you seeing how the illusion works, who everyone is in the illusion of control? I was in the illusion myself lol.
You think you have free thought and control over your decisions, but as you can see, actually you don’t. It’s all an illusion that we like to believe to make ourselves feel comfortable. That’s the same reason, we don’t like to ask BIG questions like, “what is the meaning of life?” or shit like “why am I here?”, because these questions make us feel uncomfortable. And we like comfort.
So, we are influenced after all. And it’s the same case with everything in our lives. And I mean everything. The way we think about ourselves, the way we dress, the food we eat, the places we go, the people we hang out with, and even the way we chat (why do you think we use lmao and lols, lol (pun level 100)). It’s in literally every part, every waking second of your life.
So finally!
The moment you all have been waiting for, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the much anticipated conclusion (and I think I’ve proven my statement ; ) : We don’t have freedom of thought, the notion of control is an illusion and you didn’t really ‘choose’ that song after all did you? You were prolly listening to it on your way to school because it was popular at the time, some of your friends listened to it at school, you’ve heard a lot of good things about the artist or literally any one of hundreds of other factors that influenced you to choose that song.
Choose one ; )
Cheers!
= )
Ps: I really need to sleep, it’s 3:30 in the morning already. Yikes!
Honestblogs 