By Armita Rohani
The human mind is an asset. Whether it is used for survival or the most standard “elementary level” problems, it is the body’s most important tool; it is responsible for our decisions. Those decisions evolve into shaping our behavior. Our behavior shapes our actions. Our actions shape our person, and our person shapes everything else. Yet our minds are also deceitful, warped, and plagued: our actions are not always what we want them to be, our thoughts sometimes not our own, and the cognitive biases we are equipped with at birth poison our reasoning. The rest of our bodies can only survive for so long after the illness that is decimating our brain bleeds to our other organs. Eve’s poisonous thoughts bled to her deceitful heart, dooming all of humanity to sin through her lack of rationale. Getting closer to God is not about changing our hearts but of changing our mind, for it is the only thing we are truly able to control: our thinking.
What you think is what you are. Your thinking controls your perception; in turn your perception guides your actions, beliefs, and analysis of a situation. In simpler terms, your reactions are from your thoughts. If your mind has been infected by some notion, it will hold onto it firmly and act accordingly; there’s nothing more that a sick brain hates than being told it’s wrong. Once we accept the notion, we adopt it; anything that challenges it we reject immediately. For instance, if you place fleas under a plastic tupperware for a day, they will jump no higher than its roof for the rest of their lives. They’ve adopted the notion that there is a barrier above their heads–limiting their space to jump–and they will never challenge the idea further. The fleas are stuck in a matrix of limitation: they could never reach their capabilities from the ideas that were implanted in their minds, thus intoxicating their thoughts. The inability to combat these thoughts makes someone be trapped in it, the confinement leading to conformity. If an idea is repeatedly presented to you, you are more likely to accept it as true, and more willing to defend it, even if it goes against your previous beliefs.
Hitler used this, brutally. In Mein Kampf, he emphasizes the use of repetition to install propaganda. Many Germans had Jewish neighbors and friends; it was when Hitler started infecting people with his anti-Semetic thoughts that he was able to turn people who were against antisemitism into supporting it. Following the formula, their minds were infected by antisemitism and war propaganda, so they adopted and supported the cause. Anyone who spoke against those beliefs and ideas were hanged publicly. In a more common scenario, if people feed and accept their negative thoughts, they will adopt them. Issues regarding body image, depression, and other mental health illnesses are aggravated by such a plague. If we accept the idea that we’re oppressed, we confine ourselves to its limitations, crying out for relief when there’s nothing to be relieved from. The protests will only further spread the false idea, contaminating others who–similarly–accept the notion so simply. However, if we reject the idea that we are oppressed through critical examination, we can divert our attention and thoughts into strengthening ourselves and overcoming our problems rather than conforming to them.
“Ignorance is bliss” is only helpful for short term pleasure rather than long term happiness. We can distort our perception of reality and reject the truth for only so long. As Dr. Redmond says, “The smartest thing you can do is to be wrong.” If we conform to our accepted beliefs, we will never advance to anything, for the truth can only be avoided by your plaguing mind for so long. You can never learn with ignorance. Without learning you cannot grow, and without growing you are stuck as a rigid person that will never amount to anything. Our experiences as we age give us wisdom; if we are ignorant to our experiences we are ignorant to ourselves, and we become unoriginal and bland. We miss out on things that would have saved us had we not conformed to our ignorance. Speaking about the rich man and poor man named Lazarus, Jesus outlines the consequences ignorance had on salvation. While the poor man remained ignorant to the good word, Lazarus embraced it; although the man was rich, his mind was penniless. For when they both died, it was Lazarus that was raised to the gates of heaven and the rich man punished for his ignorance in hell. Putin’s ignorance on the uselessness of his war is costing lives this very minute, as thousands of men are stripped from their families and homes as a result of the bald craphead’s intoxicated thinking. Ignorance doesn’t only rob us, but also robs others–especially through our actions.
Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” The only treatment to this deathly way of thoughts is by thinking about ideas before accepting them. You need to recognize where the cut is in order to put a bandaid on it (following the war analogy). If you don’t know your brain is dying, you can’t treat it, thus the rest of your body falls with it. It is only when we sit with our thoughts that we can contemplate our mindset. When we contemplate our mindset, we reorganize our perception; reorganizing perception changes our decisions; us changing our decisions leads to reshaping our behavior. Reshaping our behavior causes us to reconsider our actions. Reconsidering our actions, creates a new–and better–person, who is able to overcome conformity by emphasizing questionment. As Einstein said, “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
