Programmed Minds.

Childhood

When we're young, playful and carefree, our imagination is able to take us to places where we can be whatever we want to be. Every child is an expert in creating and shaping its own realities and finds itself playing a made up character from time to time. We were elves and trolls. We flew high in the sky like majestic fire-breathing dragons. And we were cowboys chasing down native Americans with our fake pistols and plastic bows and arrows. We didn't make these things up ourselves though. We just copied what we saw. We got inspired by all these different characters and creatures from books and movies.

Fire fighters, cops, soldiers, princesses, mothers, prima ballerinas... they were all there in our imaginations but one or two of them stuck with us for a longer time.

“When I grow up I want to be...”

Dreams, so many childish dreams.

As we grow up we start to realize that being a princess isn't about amazingly beautiful dresses, priceless tiaras and going to the ball to meet our dreamy prince. And that shining armor won't shine for long when you're send out to fight a nasty, bloody war for your tyrannical president. Reality slaps us in our faces and we're left alone sad and disappointed. Of course we want Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to be real. But they're not. So we wake up from the illusion and start to see them for what they really are. It's just one big scam and our entire environment was involved. We were misled and lied to by all the people we loved. But all our friends were to. And they don't make a big fuzz, so we don't either. We forgive everyone, accept the big compliment that we're growing up becoming a big boy/girl. And we start to believe that that's what we want, to fit in with the adults.

Puberty

So the adults become our biggest advisers and we admire them for their knowledge and wisdom. Everything they say is true and we trust them in everything they do. But as we grow up reality slaps us in our faces, again, and we hit puberty. We start to think for ourselves and question everything we learn. We discover lots of flaws in the adults we trusted and so there's the disappointment again. Reality opened our eyes, again. We feel alone, again. But this time we do make a fuzz and we start to rebel.

This very moment in our lives is one of the biggest, most important milestones to entering the world of adulthood. Childhood is over now. We're done fantasizing and pretending we are something that we're not. We're done playing make-believe and we want to be our truest selves. We let go of the childish dreams we had and are ready for the real thing. We're wide awake and our intention to finding the truth was never en will never be as pure as this moment. Our quest to reality and truth starts here.

Every human being has the desire to discover the truth. It's in our nature. It's the only place where we'll ever find the true meaning of our existence.

This means of course that truth and reality are two very powerful things. And as we've discovered during childhood and just now, reality is not what we think it is. It is only found outside the chains that keep us from it. Let's call the keeper of these chains 'the system', for now. From the moment reality has slapped us in our faces and we start to rebel against the system, society steps in with its very cunning way of putting us back to sleep. It makes sure that puberty is portrayed as a brief but turbulent period of ignorance, debauchery and carelessness. Teenagers should never be taken serious because they are naive and know nothing of the real world. All their believes and ideals are just illusions that will fade away if they study or work hard and learn how to be an adult by punishment and reward. This way puberty seems like a mental disease and if it is treated right it will go over soon. And let it just be so that society has developed the perfect psychological treatment for this destructive disease. Because that's what we are during puberty. A threat to the system if we're not pulled away from the path to reality.

Big Brother

MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE is the big mantra that society shouts to us. Because that's what we want to hear of course. We're young and full of energy. We're carrying our believes and ideals with us. We're looking for a goal, a meaning. We want to go further and discover what reality has to offer.

But of course society doesn't mean to really make our dreams come true. What it's saying is STOP THINKING FOR YOURSELF, GO BACK TO SLEEP AND WE'LL CREATE YOUR REALITY FOR YOU.

It starts presenting a beautiful and appealing range of roles we can choose from to play in the “real world”. Engineer, nurse, scientist... all the different roles are wrapped into the most beautiful gift paper with shiny ribbons that matches our ideals and believes perfectly. And it's all being served on silver and golden platters just so we'd start to believe it's all worth it.

YOU ARE THE FUTURE. They tell us. And that makes us feel so very important. The leaflets pretend to understand our ideals by accentuating phrases like “Engineering is the future for a thinker like you!”, “Nursing is the noble goal your caring personality is meant for!” … The universities are impressive, we're surrounded by like-minded people and we kind of start to get the feeling that we can help improve the world if we start walking one of the routes society serves us. Maybe we can change things from inside, you know? And of course we get countless privileges just for being a student. So we fall for it. And before we know it we're being plugged into the Matrix, thinking we're the ones making the dream come true. Convinced that we're the ones who are doing our own thinking. And it all feels so natural and real because everyone is doing the same thing. But from now on every thought we ever have is just a copy of a copy of a copy... We think we make our own choices but society consists of thousands and thousands of patterns and each one of us is just a successor to keep certain patterns going. Now we're all just robots programmed to keep the system going and growing.

We tumbled back into childhood thinking we're on our way to becoming adults. Playing roles and pretending we are something that we're not. Playing a make-believe reality together with the rest of the world.

And that make-believe reality is created by society itself. It's taking care of us, you know. As long as we stay between her lines. Games have to have rules right?

So now one of us is playing the engineer who once wanted to make the world a better place by inventing alternative fuels. But he cannot tell anyone because economy is not ready for that. It does not make enough money. Meanwhile global warming is threatening life on earth.

One of us is playing a beautiful nurse. She once wanted to help the elderly to have a comfortable last period of their lives. But society provides not enough money for this kind of care. Now she's neglecting people in need just because there isn't enough time.

One of us became a scientist and invented a simple way to cure cancer. But she cannot share this knowledge because cancer treatment as it is now is a goldmine for society.

We all pretend to be someone. But we're not. None of us is. We mean nothing. We're just small parts of a genius system we fail to fully understand. It's so Big and clever that we now define it as reality. We think we've reached adulthood. But truth is that we're all stuck being children playing make-believe. Our ego's contain the most deceitful costumes and masks which mislead us from what we really are. The ego is designed so very cunningly that the illusion feels so real. It's genius. It makes us believe that we're individuals with an own identity. We think reality is in our feelings, personalities, goals, environments, actions,... we think it's all real, but it is NOT!

It's the biggest, extremely cunning, illusionary and most genius scam that everyone's playing along for such a long time that we forgot how to wake up from it and finally discover the truth. We're trapped. Chained in a cave facing a wall. Thinking reality lies in the shadows against that wall. Unaware that the shadows are created by a fire behind our backs. A fire lit by the system,

the one and only Big Brother.

Game over. He won.