Penny For Your Thoughts

"Most people act without ever thinking, and they seldom commit the acts they think."

In The Twilight Zone episode A Penny For Your Thoughts, a young banker at a newspaper stand tosses a penny into a tin, and the penny miraculously lands on it’s side; a one in a million chance. As a consequence, the young man finds that he can hear people’s thoughts as though they were saying them aloud. Surprised, he steps into the road and is nearly hit by a car. The driver rushes to help him up, apologizing graciously, as his thoughts on the matter directly contradict what he is saying; mentally calling the man an idiot and a ham, and blaming him for nearly giving him a heart attack. This juxtaposition between action and thought in this early instance in the episode is a tone setter, which is later illuminated on more significant matters towards the end.

The man goes to work and discovers that his boss is having an affair; that his secretary is in love with him; and that the old man whom the company trusts more than anyone is planning to rob the bank at 4pm that afternoon and catch a plane to Fiji, as part of his routine is to check the vault before going home, and nobody would ever suspect him. The young man informs his boss of the old man’s plan, and his boss has security stop the old man on his way out of the vault, forcing him to empty his briefcase, though he is found to have no money on him at all. The young banker apologises to the old man, who brushes his apology aside, sitting him down, asking him how he knew that he was thinking of robbing the bank, because it was true. He goes on to explain that robbing the bank and going to Fiji has been a fantasy of his for years, one that he has almost daily (though the destination often changes) but that he doesn’t act upon because it’s foolish, he’s too old, and he’s somewhat of a coward.

The brilliant thing about this episode, beyond the simple message which I’ll get to in a moment, is the structure of which it is delivered. Initially, it’s wonder and amazement at the fictitious possibility of mind reading that the story presents, but it then begins to make the false argument that if one could hear people’s thoughts and fantasies, one could judge that person’s character and potential actions. He leads the audience to believe that the thought listener, so to speak, is something of a hero with this ability; able to sort out the wicked from the good via personal thought, and act upon it. Rod does this deliberately, I think, to make his point as clear as crystal– that fantasy in no way represents the conscious actions of the individual, and that fantasy more often than not represents the exact opposite of a person’s behavior.

I find it amazing that the modern arguments of censorship; that video games cause violence, that pornography causes sexual deviancy, and so forth, have already been flawlessly reputed and addressed in 1961. There is a growing consensus, at least among Americans, driven by fear, that the imagination is the root of all evil. Soliciting minors and viewing child pornography online are all federal offenses, without any action required for conviction, and I think this is wrong…which is where it gets messy. Condoning pedophile thought in any way is sticky business, because who the hell condones the most egregious crime imaginable? But it’s allowed this window for the pitch-fork wielding mob to sneak their argument that the imagination is evil into serious consideration, and even practice. What’s next? People going to prison for googling "down with big brother?" Can’t a fella fantasize about having sex with a thirteen year old girl without being a pedophile? And one further, in this climate of constant news about pedophile-this, pedophile-that, can a fella NOT entertain at least one fantasy about having sex with a minor? Talk about root of the problem. Now I personally don’t see anything sexually appealing about children. Why? Because I’ve thought about it. I will confess, however, that most of my fantasies consist of tying unwilling women to tables doing what I want with them, but that’s just my personal preference. Have I ever raped anyone? No. Do I actually want to rape anyone and ruin their lives forever? Hell no. But if I was forced to repress the fantasy, would I be more vulnerable to acting it out without any self control? Perhaps, perhaps…

People in favor of censorship make the argument that too much imagination forces people to blur the line between imagination and reality. Bullshit. There is a simple word for such a practice– Insanity, and it’s unrelated.

Imagination is not the enemy…the enemy of imagination is the enemy.