#02-07-16

So Damn Scary Reading 1984, I keep thinking how very similar the perceptions are to our current times. Hearing politicians on their stump speeches is pretty damn scary if you think about it. I hear one party summoning fear to elicit the votes of one ideology and then in another party, they prey on the fears of those that fear the “fear” party. Winston was right, a bunch of nonsensical doublethink if you ask me. It’s funny to me how very little we hear the actual truth out of anyone. Then, there is the media who care more about ratings than actually passing along truth and facts. Like Winston in his world, we are asked to accept that things we see with our own eyes are not quite real or never happened at all. I’d like to think we are so much more evolved than what the story in 1984 is telling us. Are we? I really hope so. Before reading this book and the other books and short stories in our class, I would have said that we are definitely more evolved. Now, I’m not so sure. I felt so secure in the idea that ignorance would lose and education and knowledge would win. Now, I am much more cautious and less trusting than before. In the end, or the final analysis, I have a choice to make - I will live from a place of fear and suspicion, or live from a place of courage and confidence. Either way, life unfolds and my chosen response will largely influence the outcome.