Читать книгу Enslaved Mind - Donald Lodrigue - Страница 5

Introduction

We were asked in class how we would feel if we were enslaved to other people. As the teacher moved around the classroom asking people’s opinion, I sat there thinking and wondering if she really understood what she was asking because the way she asked the question might seem embarrassing to some people who could not comprehend it.

As everyone gave their answer, I listened carefully to them, wondering if they really had any idea or knowledge about what they were saying. I wondered if they knew that their minds were being enslaved in some way. This question kept popping up in my head, “Could social media be enslaving our mind?” Well, everyone is a hunter until they become the hunted, I imagined. I then told a couple of friends that we would discuss this topic over lunch. Unlike others who were perplexed at being asked, I had an idea of what to say on the issue of being enslaved. Most people were scared of expressing what they had in their minds because they feared they might be seen as racists.

On my way to the food court for lunch, I kept thinking about the answers some people had given and how their minds were enslaved since they were drawing conclusion without looking at the big picture or considering the facts. On my way, I saw a crowd of protesters to whom I paid attention, and I ended up enjoying their protest. Although many other people around barely understood them or their reasons for protest, I started questioning people to find out what they were protesting about and what was stopping them from making their own decision. Even before I could finish my questioning, the protesters started yelling at me, saying they were protesting because of people like me. I was perplexed; I had absolutely no idea what they were saying or even protesting about.

They continued their protest, even getting louder and calling me all sorts of names and accusing me of whatever they thought of me. I managed to ask the question my professor had asked earlier, “What is really enslaving your mind?” I got yelled at even more, and they continued saying it was people like me. I had absolutely no idea what they meant by “people like me.”

I attempted asking again, “What is enslaving your mind? Why are you just being a follower instead of fighting for your own course? What exactly is it that you are protesting?” They continued yelling; then I said, “This is the reason why people hate people.” I decided to be the bigger person, and I walked off without uttering anything else. I simply continued walking to meet up with my friends on their way to the food court. As I approached them, I started laughing; then they asked what was so funny and why I was late.

I was so excited to tell them about the encounter I just had with the protesters; it was so wild and crazy that it took my breath away. I had never had such an encounter in my life before because down south, we usually didn’t have that much protest. The encounter really did blow my mind that I continued laughing; my friends started laughing also and were even more eager to know what I had gone through.

I started narrating to them that I was walking past when I saw a crowd of people protesting; I then decided to stop by and ask what the big fuss was all about. I could not hear from way behind what the men and the women were yelling about, so I decided to ask people around what the big fuss was all about. Initially, when I stopped to ask, the people were quiet, calm, and collected in telling me what the argument was all about. I then proceeded to ask them what stopped them from starting their own protest; I asked, “Why don’t you start your own protest instead of just being a follower?” A lady then took a deep breath and started yelling at me, to the extent that we could not even have a civilized conversation as adults. I tried asking her again what the people were protesting about and why they were protesting, but she kept yelling at me. I then asked her what was enslaving her mind. It was at this point she started ranting that it was people like me that were destroying the world.

“That was what kept me this late,” I said to my friends. We all had a great laugh. While laughing, though, I kept pondering over the question on my mind from when I was in class. “Could social media be so blinding that it enslaves our minds, or could it be as a result of the blind spots we don’t see?” This question kept lingering on my mind as we laughed.

We then started talking about what enslaved the mind, as we laughed. The first person to comment was Trisha.

Trisha said, “Let’s start with how friends enslave your mind.”

I had often wondered, How can a friend enslave your mind or even alter your ideas? So I started watching and listening intently as my friends conversed with one another. I noticed how one would just say something and the others listening would just believe what they were told without doing research or investigating how factual or truthful the statement or idea was. Some of them even started hating the people they were being told about without knowing them.

It all seemed crazy to me. How easy it is to enslave someone, I thought. I mean, it’s 2019. Over two centuries, two hundred years, have passed, and we are still living in the past? I thought to myself. Every single thing we were going through and fighting over was the same as it was in the 1800s. I asked myself, What have we done different? All I saw was us repeating the past and its mistakes. As long as we kept on repeating the past, we would keep suffering and dying because we do not realize that the world around us had a way of infusing negative thoughts and ideas in our minds.

Let’s take ancient forms of slavery as an example. God created us all equal, so if we were all equal, why did some have to be slaves to others? Kings had servants and peasants. Both the Roman Empire and the Irish had slaves in cells; likewise, we enslaved our minds, so did we have to repeat these ugly spots in history?

All men were created equal; that was what they said. But then one man or woman got the big idea that just one person should rule the world and become a leader. They figured it out that if they could enslave the mind of the people, they could rule the people, without knowing the consequences and repercussions of what they were doing. They were shedding blood on a field of battle that they did not know that they were creating at the time. They started to show people that if you were willing to be enslaved, we were willing to take over your mind with no problem at all.

As humans, we did not realize it or notice it, but some of us did because we saw the full story, not just half. Sometimes you had to open up your mind and understand that some people would take over your mind without even asking you, telling you they just did it because they knew that you are a weak-minded person. So I sat there and listened to everyone’s story, from the horror stories to the love stories. But I imagined how social media could grow as people understood that there was not one man that controlled the world, rather your body was like a business. You’re the owner, don’t let anyone own your body.

Being enslaved was like being inside a coat. It was easy to get in but hard to get out, so seemed the horror that the more we tried to enslave people, the easier it got. An enslaved mind was like slavery, just mentally. It was like being bullied all your life. You got so used to getting pushed around that you let it continue in your adult life, letting people push you around and enslaving your mind.

A lot of horror stories came out of enslaved minds because you could kill someone by just enslaving them; you might not believe it was true, but in all reality, if someone had a weak mind and you told them to jump off a bridge, they would jump without asking any questions because you had shown them and tried to control them by taking over the power. That was the reason why a lot of people went insane; due to the fact that they could not control their own mind, they let other people control them. Some people were just good talkers while some people were just good listeners. But the ones that enslaved your mind on social media, they told you what they wanted you to believe without even knowing the facts. Some would try to get you to believe something that was not true even when it was an obvious false statement.

I was once told that in order to see the bigger picture, you had to look at both sides of the story. Like, if something happened to someone you love, the first thing you said was he or she was a good person. Even though you thought you were around them every day, what was inside their minds was totally different. When they were away from you, they did different things. Some people might believe everything in this book; some people might not. Opinions vary. But if you were only looking at the world in one way, then you were enslaved. Enslaving your mind caused damage to yourself. How did it start; how did we become the enslaved mind? As usual, we went back to the father, the creator (hatred). How did hatred enslave our mind? We would see if we could figure this out together, but always remember that the only way to repair this is by leaving the past behind and focusing on the future.

Everyone was a victim to the worst thing in the world—enslaving. The reason was that negativity was a part of the teaching of our elders, who we looked up to. They taught us to hate other people and to control other people by enslaving their minds, when in reality, we were only enslaving our minds by following such paths. The truth was that everyone had an opinion, and even if you did not ask for it, they would give it to you, but it was up to you not to let someone else take over your mind or infiltrate it with wrong ideas. When the voice in your head spoke, you should listen. We definitely were not going to be right all the time, but that should not make us assume that every other person was right, especially our elders, because sometimes our elders taught us lies. It was what our elders taught that caused the hatred in the world, and hatred enslaves us to the worst person we could be, being that we were not thinking for ourselves.

We were just following in the footsteps of our elders, coming up with the same problem day after day, year after year. Everything we were going through today was the same as it was thousands of years ago.

“Britney, how does it make you feel?” I asked.

Britney said, “The one thing that is always a problem for me is people who will teach you something.” In everyone’s life, there was always the good, the bad, and the downright ugly people. As a general rule, you should learn something from everybody. It didn’t matter what they taught you; you should pick a lesson from them whether they treated you good or bad, or were ugly toward you.

However, this didn’t mean that you would allow every horrible person into your corner or take crap from everyone around you. Therefore, you should weed out the pests in your life. As for those that were watering you for success, these were the people you should hold close. They were the people you learned from daily, and they were always there to cheer you on when you felt down. It was such people that would see new opportunities and had you in mind first. They would not only tell you about the opportunities but would also help you get them. True friends would cheer your success and cheer you up when you were down. However, you couldn’t call yourself a friend either if you couldn’t return the favor. You should be willing to develop yourself, too, to be useful to those you called friends.

Let us now proceed in details into how friends enslaved your mind and ideas, how you could identify true friends, and how you could break free from an enslaved mind.