When I read Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto, there is no doubt that I was inspired by it. I had never read such a concise, yet informative document which had the ability to convincingly explain the way the world worked with respect to technology and its development. Within the first few paragraphs, I had decided that what I was reading was too incredible, too mindblowing for me to just read through it once and forget. I wanted to be able to remember the concepts that I was reading, I wanted to be able to imbibe it, to integrate it as a part of my knowledge. And I knew that writing a summary would help with that goal.
During my eight hour binge read of the manifesto, I constantly copied out key points and concepts which either left me speechless because of its logic or because it was something fundamental that would help me summarise the document. The next day I began my work.
It isn’t easy to explain what reading the manifesto made me feel. The closest that I could compare it to, was the ecstasy I would have in my childhood on completing one of my lego creations. However, I knew that what I felt here was something more. Reading the manifesto and understanding it had opened up an entirely new way of thinking to me. The facts and logic being used to formulate a potential future were thoughts that had never crossed my mind. Or even if they had, I had never been able to draw such informative conclusions or connections from it.
In short, I felt that I had been introduced to a new world. I began looking at my life and my surroundings in a different way. Where just a day ago I had felt immensely frustrated for not being able to take out the time to write, I now began looking at the task as a surrogate activity, a way for me to find meaning in my life. This did not mean that I would stop writing, that I would stop studying to become a doctor, but just that the immense pressure that had been within me had for some reason vanished.
I felt passion, passion to a degree which I could not remember having felt ever before, even perhaps during the time I worked with lego. I felt enlightened, I felt as if I had understood, in some way, the functioning of the world. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night. I had lain in bed, with my eyes opened or closed, it didn’t matter which, because my mind had been wide awake, running over and cradling the sentences and concepts that I had read.
It was then I felt, that perhaps others should read it. Perhaps others might like it too. Perhaps someone else might get their world turned over as mine had. I decided that I would put up the summary on a blog, under my name, and share it on Instagram.
I spent two days writing the summary. It wasn’t easy to turn a 35,000 word document into one of less than 2,000. It was tedious but exhilarating. As I read the principles again and understood them to a greater degree, I could feel the newfound passion of alienness levels soaring. I found myself wishing that this spark would never die. My world felt like a dream; everything now made sense(even if it wasn’t pretty), and no matter what happened to me in the future, I would understand and love myself(regardless of whether I gained success or not). I didn’t want this personal cloud around me to fade.
Before putting up the summary, I wanted to get my parents’ opinions. After all, I was putting up a summary of a document that a serial bomber had written. Maybe there were some sentences that I would need to change, in case it seemed as if I was supporting and justifying his deeds.
The feedback I got from my parents wasn’t unexpected, in fact at some level, I had known along that this was going to happen, they were thoughts I had thought of myself, how could I not have? I am an overthinker, I consider all the possibilities, even the extreme and seemingly illogical ones. But when my parents spoke it out loud, I felt my dreams shatter, and a deeper truth emerge.
My father stated point-blank, that even though I had explicitly mentioned that I did not support Ted Kackyski’s actions, people could get the impression that I did. Hearing that, I knew that there was no way I could put it up. I was standing in front of them just outside their room, and I wanted to cry. I might have made an excuse to go away, but then my mother began speaking.
She hadn’t read my summary but knew the gist of it. She said that whenever someone wrote something that was different, had a unique perspective of thinking, people could view it as the author trying to portray himself as superior. People wouldn’t like it. As a result, people might want to isolate such a writer.
Those words hit me hard. For one, I realised that I would never be able to openly speak about my thoughts under my name. My way of thinking is different, I can’t help it. Whether it was due to my strange upbringing(consisting of homeschooling and going to alternative schools), or because of my parents(intellectuals who quit their jobs to find meaning in their work), my brain had been hardwired to think in ways that many times could not be considered mainstream. And according to my mother, because of this, I was destined to be viewed as someone who thought too highly of himself.
Was that my purpose? Deep down was that the reason I was writing this summary - to post it online and bask in the hypothetical glory that people would give me? A lot of times it is things like this that my ego desires, but I knew that this time, it had not been the case. All I had wanted was to present an idea to my friends and those I knew. All I had wanted was for someone to read what I had written. I hadn’t wanted them to think of me as superior, I had just wanted people to read my thoughts.
The second thing that I realised, was the truth of Ted Kaczynski’s words. The way my mother was speaking, of how people were disliked if they spoke against mainstream ideas - how was that any different than trying to speak against the system as Ted Kackysnki wrote about? Society was united, knowingly or unknowingly, and with their supposed justified mentality, they were stopping me from safely, without facing prejudice, speaking about what went on in my mind. Just because I was interested in different things, viewed the world around me in an unconventional way, I was being stopped from presenting my views. Was this my future? Would this always be my future? Was I to conform with the system?
Just thinking about that possibility causes disgust and rage to fill my mind.
I was going to be a doctor - because I wanted to. I was going to live in the same world like everyone else - because I wanted to. But I would present my ‘different’ thoughts to the world. Now it wasn’t even about wanting other people to read my words, but that the very act of me speaking up would show that I was not being controlled by the system. I didn’t want to portray myself as superior, but I would not allow myself to be pushed under because I was looking at the world from a red filter instead of the standard green one.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day, I will put up my writings and my thoughts under my own name, and let it be known that I do not want to be viewed as superior, I just want to be accepted as normal even with my slightly different mentality. But if that acceptance isn’t possible, it doesn’t matter - I will not be suppressed for not adhering to the system.
Loading comments...