1984 - George Orwell - Part 2

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 8

 January 8, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 2 - Pages 82-151

Reading Time -60 minutes

I feel for poor Winston. He seems to be the only thinking person in a see of automatons. Sometimes he wonders if he's a lunatic - the only person who thinks the way he does. After all, even if he's right, if he's the only one who thinks that... would that not make him a lunatic?

He is, however, breaking out - doing rebellious things. Skipping Communal Gatherings in his apartment building, wandering the streets where the Proles (Proletariat) live, even talking to an +80 year old Prole and asking him about the past. He's starting to skirt very close to the edge is our Winston.

Even more crazy... a woman at his office surreptitiously gave him a little piece of paper on which was written "I love you". Winston had thought she was a spy, one of the bad ones, but now his world is turned upside down. He's excited, terrified, anxious and ready to do anything to meet with her.

All of a sudden, Winston has gone from surviving live to having a purpose, a focus, something to live for. Suddenly there is hope for him, hope of love, of finding someone like him, who understands him. And he's ready to do pretty much anything to get it.

George Orwell - The Heresy of Heresies was Common Sense.

At one point, Winston notes that the "heresy of heresies is common sense". Today, we would say that "common sense is not all that common". Another thought that comes to mind is that 95% of the thoughts we think in a day, we thought yesterday and the day before. In Winston's world, it's probably more like 100%. Which makes we wonder... how different are we from Winston's world? 5% isn't that big a difference, is it?

If thought leads to action and if we think the same thoughts day after day... then it follows that our actions are the same day after day as well. But our thoughts really are the gateway to a new world. In Winston's world, any deviation from routine makes one suspect by the ThoughtPolice... for obvious reasons. Why has Winston not come to the Communal Gatherings? Why has he taken a different route home? Actions reflect thoughts.

So ultimately, if we want to act differently, we need to alter our thoughts. I was reading a blog the other day which suggested that about 10,000 of our thoughts are involved with the daily activity of living - getting up, planning our day, etc. If we think about 60,000 thoughts in a day and 95% are the same, then that leaves 47,000 thoughts up for grabs. The blogger suggested that most of those 47,000 thoughts are concerned with worry, fixating on the past, future planning, negative self talk, etc. We can take some of those thoughts and turn them around. Rather than fixating on how something isn't working - "I'll never get my book published"... we can start thinking "What can I do to get my book published". We take it out of the realm of worry and into the realm of possibilities of concrete action.

Orwell's book is making me aware of the power of our thoughts and how wasteful we can be with them. At one point, Winston notes how the never-ending chatter of the telescreen makes it hard to think. That is probably not an accident. But we too sit in front of the TV in a mindless stupor, surrendering our thoughts to something called "entertainment". Where do we get the time to just think? Driving in the car... going for a walk... sitting by the ocean. Putting down the phone, turning off the TV. And just being still and seeing what surfaces as our minds settle.