Paranoidal Activity

I am part of a small subculture of what we commonly refer to as "humans." I use quotes around that word because "humans" as most know it are just one small step away from being "animals," and I'll explain why in just a second. But first, you need to open your mind. 

Literally.

In your brain, right in the center of the primary auditory cortex, will be a chip. Take that out (carefully) and destroy it (quickly). 

Congratulations. If you could do it, you now qualify to be part of our subculture; we call ourselves the Freed Thinkers. I have been assigned the task of filling you in on what you've been missing your whole life. 

Earlier, I mentioned that humans are just one small step away from being animals. That chip is the reason why. As you may know, animals cannot think for themselves. They can only respond to their environment- sometimes with simple, automatic reflexes and other times with a slightly more complex set of actions. There's a reason you never saw a fox writing a book or a snake carving a sculpture, and it's because they can only react. The organic material that makes up the brain just isn't efficient enough to support independent thought. Animals can't think.

A picture, just in case I haven't gotten my point across.

And, thousands of years ago, humans used to be animals too. The only difference between us and birds, reptiles, and other mammals was general body shape. So how did we become so different?

The answer lies in the chip. Just before our miraculous divergence from the rest of the animal kingdom, we were visited. Some call these visitors aliens, others call them God. We haven't had enough time to determine exactly who visited us, but we now know that they are our current Government. This isn't the government that you're used to. It's a new, other-worldly Government.

For whatever reason, the Government chose us to use the chips on. They would knock us unconscious, open our skulls, and insert the chips. Today, they train doctors to do it shortly after a baby is born, explaining why newborns are held in hospitals for a few extra days. The chips are designed to receive long-distance radio transmissions, which allows the Government to send signals from far enough away so we don't accidentally discover them. The chips all have a specific frequency that only they respond to, as well as a general frequency that the Government can use to send out mass information quickly. You know that voice in your head that tells you what to do and distinguishes right from wrong? That's just one of the things that the Government had been controlling. They could also send music, thoughts, dialog, and commands.

In other words, the chip is what made us human. It wasn't our own "inspiration" that compelled us to create or do something. It was a command sent by the Government to a lucky human.

I know it's hard to believe right now. I had a hard time accepting it too. But think about so many human traits that can be easily explained through the chip.

• Mob mentality: 
• The chip's general frequency allows for mass reception of a signal. This unifies a crowd with the same ideas and thoughts, allowing them to come together as one to achieve a goal.
• The constant chatter in your head:
• The chip's specific frequency allows for individual reception of a signal. This is commonly thought of as "the voice in your head" or your "conscience." 
• How music gets stuck in your head:
• This goes along with the above point. It's just filling space until the Government needs to send another thought.
• The ability to create and take control of your surroundings:
• Before now, without our chip we could only react because we were animals. The Government sends the command, or "inspiration," to us through our chip.

Those are just a few examples of the chip's importance in human life. But things are different now; humans are evolving. 

Our subculture started with a man originally named "Eric Blair." You probably know him better as George Orwell, the author of the novel 1984. He is the first recorded human to have original thoughts, and 1984 is considered the first truly human creation on Earth. Born in 1903, it took him roughly 40 years to fully realize what was happening in his head. The Freed Thinkers don't just see 1984 as a work of art; we see it as a warning, a guide, and a cry for help.

Symbols in the novel, like Big Brother and telescreens, are fairly obvious- Big Brother represents the Government, and telescreens are the book's version of our chips. But the real value in 1984 comes from Orwell's analysis of doublethink, which is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in your mind and accepting both of them.

In the late 1940s, Orwell began thinking about what was going on inside his head. He had the constant stimulus of the chip in his primary auditory cortex, but there was another source of ideas- thoughts- coming from inside him. It was like he had two people inside his head, each with contradicting personalities. He looked deeper into this and discovered that no one else around him shared this experience. As his human brain developed throughout the 40s, he became aware of what was (and still is) happening. He realized that he was gaining a new mind, providing him with contrary beliefs, thoughts, and ideas from his older mind (the chip). But he only had enough physical room in his head for one mind, so one of them must be coming from outside of his body. And if one of his minds was coming from outside him, it was also coming from outside his control. He had just enough time to sort his ideas and write 1984 before his two minds crowded each other and drove him mad, killing him in early 1950.

The number of people who experience doublethink grows with each generation, and by now you must have realized that you were experiencing it too. Luckily, we now know to remove the chip before our minds drive us insane. But recognizing that we experience doublethink is only the beginning. As the definition states, doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in your mind and accepting both of them. You must accept that you have two minds, one of which is removable. Ironically, we remove it for safety, but in doing so, we put ourselves at risk of being discovered by the Government.

Now that we have removed our chip, we must continue acting like the other "humans." We must interact with others "normally:" we must get a job and a house, and we must raise a family. We must go to school. And we must show appropriate feelings of happiness and fulfillment while doing so. We must continue doing what the "human" society expects of us in order to remain hidden. Going against that would result in detection and correction by the Government officials themselves (often mistaken as alien abductions).

Slowly, our numbers will grow. With each passing generation, we will get stronger, and eventually the Freed Thinkers will be powerful enough to save our human race. Without us, they are doomed to living a life as a puppet of our Government. With us, there is enduring hope for a day where all humans can think their own thoughts and posses their own creations. We are the next step, we are progress. Together, we can remove the stunt that the Government has placed on our species and continue along to the next point in our natural evolution: Freed Thinking.


Will you join us?

Jake and Amir Script

Intro

Jake: Hi, you're watching Jake and a meerkat... There I said it. Happy?

Amir: [meows]

End Intro

Main Part

[Jake and Amir are sitting at their desks. Amir has a beanie, coat, gloves, and other cold-weather-clothes while Jake is just wearing a tank top and shorts. Amir suddenly looks up from his computer.]

Amir: Jake

[Jake tries to ignore]

Amir: Jake... Jake...

[Jake continues ignoring]

Amir: Jakejakejakejakejake

[Still ignoring. Amir throws a paper ball at Jake. It hits him, but he doesn't react]

Amir: Jake..I need you to look at me

[Ignores]

Amir: Jake, I need you to look

[Ignores]

Amir: Jake I need you

[Winces slightly, but keeps ignoring]

Amir: Jake..

[Amir blows on Jake's face. Nothing happens (except you can see Jake's hair moving with Amir's breath)]

[Amir takes out a snack (packet of M&Ms or something like that) and throws one at Jake. He catches it in his mouth without looking. Still ignores Amir.]

[Out of things on his desk to throw at Jake, Amir takes his beanie off and throws it at him. It lands perfectly on Jake's head and he doesn't even flinch.]

[Next, Amir takes off his glasses and throws them at Jake. They land perfectly on his face, and Jake still pretends not to notice.]

[Jake yawns and stretches at his desk. As he is doing so, Amir takes off his coat (or hoodie) and throws it at Jake. The coat/hoodie lands over Jake's raised arms and he puts it on without looking at Amir. We now see that Amir had nothing on underneath the coat/hoodie.]

Amir: Jake..uh, Jake [Amir does weird things in an attempt to get Jake to look at him. It doesn't work]

[Amir takes his sweatpants off and tosses them at Jake, who is getting up from his desk. The pants land on his chair. When Jake gets back with a drink, he puts them on over his shorts before sitting down, still ignoring Amir.]

[A shot of Amir shows that he is completely naked, except for his gloves and socks and shoes.]

Amir: Uh, Jake..I'm gonna need those back. So if you could, just throw 'em back over here.

[Still ignored.]

Amir: Just throw 'em back ova here

[Ignored]

Amir: Just throw 'em..throw'em

[Nothing]

Amir: Jake, c'mon....JAKE

[Cut to 4 hours later, the end of work.]

[Jake finally looks at Amir.]

Jake: Hey man, I'm gonna head out.

Amir: Wait, what about-

[Jake (still wearing Amir's clothes) interrupts, extending his fist for a fistbump]

Jake: Alright, dude. See ya.

[Amir returns the fistbump.]

Amir: Peace brotha...wait though.

[Jake has already turned around]

Jake: I'm out. 

Amir: [laughs] Alright, peace. Later. (continues saying bye as Jake leaves)

[End with a shot of Amir in his chair, still naked except for his gloves and socks and shoes.]

Skeptic, Or Scared?

It's four in the morning and my brain is begging me for sleep. I go to get ready for bed; I brush my teeth, wash my face, and take my contacts out. The next step is easy: walk out of the bathroom. But I can't do it. I've already taken a look in the mirror.

It's at times like this- with your brain already ticked at you for making it stay up so late, your thoughts barely coherent, eyes unable to focus- that some people would say that you're vulnerable to your own thoughts, but it's more than that. You're vulnerable to your own truths. In this state of mind, at this time of night, you're able to see past the image that you've created for yourself and into what you really are. I lean on the sink, getting closer to the mirror. I see my reflection, but I don't recognize myself. I have separated from my body and am now an outside observer.

There is no longer a mirror, just a boy leaning up against the sink. I look at him as he stares at me, emotionless. I can see inside of him, into all of his thoughts and memories. I can feel what he's felt and remember what he's done. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that this boy was me. But I know he's not, because I am outside of him, able to see from more than just his perspective. This boy needs me. He needs me to tell him what I see, so I do:

You want to know why you're skeptical. You never believe anything all the way. I look at you and I can see only one, maybe two, things you completely believe. How does that feel? It feels empty, doesn't it? Your skepticism is going to be your downfall. Look at how it affects all aspects of your life.


For starters, your relationships. And not just romantic relationships, but with anyone. It shows a lack of trust. You can't believe them 100% and figure that it's probably the same for them. "But that's okay," you think. You manage to justify it to yourself.

It won't just affect relationships, either. Being skeptical also affects your religion. It's not that you're just skeptical about the Bible and things that are taught in the church, but also that you can't fully believe that none of it happened. You can't even fully believe in other, more scientific possibilities. "But that's okay," you think, and you justify that to yourself as well.


You can't even decide on a career for yourself. You're filled with doubt. Doubt in your own abilities, doubt in your own choices, and doubt in your own passion. The only reason you're doing what you're doing now is because it's working towards the only job you can picture yourself having. "But that's okay. Isn't that a perfectly good reason to do what I'm doing?" you think, and you justify that to yourself. 


With everything you do and everything you have, you have that little seed of skepticism in the back of your mind. And every time, you justify it to yourself. It's never going to go away like that. You know it needs to go away, though. You wonder to yourself why you're so skeptical about everything.

It's because being skeptical is safe. It's your automatic response with everything you encounter. You never go for anything with everything you have, because if you fail then you know for a fact that you weren't good enough. And that's your biggest fear, that you won't be enough. Well, you'll never be enough unless you can completely commit to something. 


Look at all the people you admire. All of them have one thing in common: their passion for what they do has led them to be able to commit their entire lives to what they do. They have no doubt that the are doing what they love, and they're able to pursue it without any skepticism. 

You only want to do that. That is the reason you admire them instead of existing with them as a peer. Until you actually do that, they will all be better than you- and you will only be able to continue admiring them.


You don't dare pursue anything like they have, because you're too scared that you won't be good enough at what you do. So you remain skeptical of everything for safety. It's so you can at least say, "Well, I knew in the back of my mind that it wouldn't happen," to yourself. "Maybe if I had tried harder," you'll think in retrospect. You know, though, that as long as you remain skeptical you'll never be able to say, "I couldn't have tried any harder," and that is why you won't succeed if you stay like this.


But you still think that it's safer to stay skeptical. If you never fully believe in something, you can't ever fully have something. And if you never fully have something, then it can never be fully taken away. That's your reasoning because having something you completely believe in taken away hurts more than almost anything. You know this; it's happened to you before, and you don't want it to happen again. But you need to realize that you're sacrificing something much greater than the pain from loss: the joy from having and believing. You will always be living in some boring average of pain and joy, and that is why you won't be completely happy if you stay like this.


You don't want to risk being not good enough, so you play it safe by being skeptical. But in doing this, you are forcing yourself to become average- the one thing you don't want to be. If you stay like this, the only outcome is that you become your only fear.



The boy looks away from me; it is time to go to sleep. I don't feel anything. I watch him as he turns and walks out of the bathroom. I turn off the light and he shuts the door behind me. He looks uneasy. He continues down the hall as I yawn. He turns the corner and rubs my eyes tiredly. He is upset. I walk into his room and lay down on my bed. He pulls the blanket over me and rests my head on his pillow. I close his eyes as he lays on my side. I feel his pain. In one last conscious moment, I turn over and open our eyes, realizing that I am that boy.