reflections on thinking

I learned how to read before I ever got into school. I learned how to count from my parents. I learned how to multiply on my own by listening to my grandpa quizzing my sister. I learned how to write from my parents, I suppose. But I learned how to WRITE from reading. From my sister. From my friends. From the OD. From the world. I learned how to think from thinking. From seeing, from hearing, from playing, from sensing, from reading, from writing, from my family, from everything that surrounds me. From the neccessity of the act of thinking.

So your only true arguement is my friends.

I must say, Sean, I wasn’t sure whether to take that note as seriousness or sarcasm… in any event, you are right in that some things I have learned in school. Occasional discussions have led to something educational, and I’ve learned how to think out complex mathematical problems… there are definate advantages to education. No doubts. But sometimes it does feel as if school constricts our thinking… our ideas… our creativity, doesn’t it? In certain classes with certain English teachers (not all mind you) where your thoughts become molded to resemble theirs. Where lines are drawn to help you color within them, when all you want to do is make lovely pictures outside of them. (Who makes juniors in a college class color pictures for over 100 points anyway???? Grr. Mrs. R, apparently.) Not just literally… I’m sure you understood, but I was just clearing that up.

At any rate, I suppose I’m more cynical of some things but more thankful for free thought than ever right now, as I read 1984. I hope you’re on chapter 6 of the second book by now. If not, hop-to! If you haven’t even gotten the book yet… tisk tisk. Soon I think I’ll start writing entries that forbid anyone who has not yet read the book to read them. Not because I’m being mean, but instead because I don’t want to ruin it for you. It’s such an incredible book… you must experience it firsthand. A society in which a language is spoken… the only language known to have fewer words each year. And with fewer words, fewer thoughts. Can you imagine the complete destruction of a place like this if our words were limited? Suddenly our descriptions would be reduced to two words, our thoughts to only tangible matters… only physical questions. Our minds would be boxes, our vocabulary the perimeter… one which slowly gets smaller and smaller… and when that becomes smaller, the area called our thoughts would decrease… restricted… constricted…

In the OD, it is possible to go back and delete entries. Change entries. Pretend something you thought, never happened… if you so choose to edit an entry. As far back as you have written, you may change it. I know some people do… maybe not quite change the contents, but will delete an entry purely because they detest it. They detest themselves within it. How close is that to the alterations made by the Ministry of Truth to the past? While you’re not changing what ACTUALLY took place, or was thought, you’re deleting all record of it. Factual evidence will not exist that you did, in fact, do whatever it was you really did. I refuse to alter past entries. The only time I will alter or delete is in the case of repeated entries, or if I’m viewing an entry right after I’ve saved it, I might change a typo… but even that’s rare. You cannot change the past, try all you might. You can only change its appearance. Ahh… you MUST read this book!

It’s kind of interesting, in a way. I’ve been listening to my Lifehouse CD while sitting out on my back porch and reading… occassionally I would tune into the lyrics in place of the words I read, and I found similarities. “So where will this end? It goes on and on… over and over… and over again. Keep spinnin’ around, I know that it won’t stop… ’til I stand down from this for good.” ~Sick Cycle Carousel Kind of like the existence of the people of Oceania, isn’t it. They put on a face of contentment, they do not question Big Brother, or Ingsoc, or the Ministries… they simply exist in a pattern of everyday life. And Winston is spinning around and around all of these lies… he knows he will die, it’s only a matter of how long he may survive. Lies upon lies… no memories, no history, no past… and it will never stop for him, until he’s dead. Perhaps you don’t see the similarities, but they seem so… so right.

I will not further inundate you with babble for now, but let you ponder. (and go find a copy of 1984 so that you might no I’m not as insane as I sound!)

I’m being, as ever,

~swept away in freedom which is not slavery~

@~>~>-dreamergrrl

***~***~***~***^~^~^~dreamergrrl~^~^~^***~***~***~***