A sixteen year old high school student, in her junior year, wakes up to the screeching alarm clock and prevailing stress of her AP classes, with her mind mourning over the colossal amounts of information it has to preserve. The human mind perceives knowledge based on observations and what it engulfs from the surroundings. So basically it has to be fed something, like wise every other organ in human body, to synthesize something. But the information itself is useless unless catalyzed by creativity.
Now when that sixteen year old spends four hours trying to memorize Causes of the American Revolution, her mind will start to wear off. After that, no matter how hard she tries, she will end up not learning anything. This leads to a question; why is their so much pressure on human brain? Why is it that she has to spend so many hours straining her brain just to remember some facts which she will forget by the next day when she can utilize the same amount of time in learning something less stressful and more knowledgeable? This continuous stress on an ambiguous mind leads to the severe abhorrence in students towards education. The dreadful memorization contributes to apathy for knowledge hence no one craves to learn. The repetitive failure because of not being able to reiterate piles of information replaces the profound desire for learning something one wishes for. And this results in lack of appreciation of knowledge. That very teenager, who although will do her best on every test and will go with the flow, will never witness the magnificence of what she is being taught. The beauty behind the mindset of people in that century will be a stranger to her since she doesn’t have time to ponder over such ‘non-beneficial’ thoughts. And when a growing mind doesn’t have time to think and be creative, the world that trails ahead is a sad world.
In 1984, George Orwell creates a world of imprisoned thoughts. He invents this imaginary character, Big Brother, who is basically the god of a certain society and controls everything that is going around. He implants theories in people’s minds, theories such that if enforced a person would be willing to believe that “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength”. Although the society has deep information regarding what’s going on in the world, altered version however so, it still lacks imagination. Human mind has to be fed really inauspicious ideas about life indeed to trick it against thinking. “ThoughtCrime” as stated in the book against any intellect that dares to think outside the given perimeter is punished. The amount of information thrown upon us creates the very same perimeter, except maybe we are not banished for thinking by the government.
The sea of information is a misnomer to starve that sixteen year old brain from knowledge. The load of that data tires the brain creating a diversion from real issues. This diversion leads to creation of a biased opinion in that mind since it runs short on the correct ‘food’ of thought. It lacks enough knowledge to form an unbiased opinion therefore leading to a large majority having similar beliefs. A technique used by politicians to dictate people’s lives without actually being accused of a dictator.
It’s about 2 am and the sixteen year old still loathes what follows the next day. Not because she despises knowledge but because her brain is leaking facts. She awaits some sort of an epiphany to balance out the load on her brain, but alas she drowns in the ‘knowledgeable’ information.
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