The Nightmare Continues -- the Ode to 1984 Goes On T_T

Of Hypocrites and Quantum Timelines

I was discussing the book 1984 by George Orwell the other night at dinner with my father and mother. Now, granted, I haven’t read the full first part yet, but what I have read sends shivers up and down my spine. I get this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that I can’t describe. It’s sort of like worry – almost panic. It’s silly, I know, and I know that the book is pure fiction – but it seems so real, and it’s really freaky. The fact that I am an anarchist and that he’s a hypocrite makes me feel somewhat better. The correlation between my father’s topic of choice – being Quantum Timelines – and Orwell’s novel is sound in a way that’s so crazy that it actually makes a lot of sense in that it makes my soothing mantra of hypocrites and anarchy seem as a futile prayer at best.

First, something that really ruffled my feather, Orwell is perhaps one of the biggest hypocrites of whom I have ever heard. The information about him states a couple of the most obvious, laughable examples in which I have blatantly seen displayed. He considered himself a socialist but he detested communism; the two are based off of the same system of beliefs. The former is just a tiny bit more lax than the latter. Secondly, and I laughed long and hard out loud when I read this, he hates intellectuals but is a literary critic. Is there anything that screams intellectual more than literary critic? This is definitely one of those moments where one slaps their forehead and screams, “D’Oh!” I have just one question then: Does this mean he hates himself…?

His writing style redeems him somewhat. I think that in his style, he lends truth to the fiction. The way he describes in such detail makes the events so much more real – like a lucid dream. The Two Minute Hate, for example, seems like I’m not just reading it. It seems like I am there, and I am watching these events unfold and take place. I can almost more than see the pictures in my mind. It is as if Orwell left feelings inside the book. And I can feel them. I can feel the hate and the fear of discovery. I can feel the sense of monotony and longing. I can feel the hurt of knowing that one is being lied to and the guilt that goes with knowing they are helping with these lies. And it makes is so much more existent. I also think that because he chose a topic that could somehow happen makes this into a whole other dimension, and the book stands totally on its own.   

The Quantum Timeline, however, is not a series of dimensions. It is, in fact, a series of timelines – bet no one saw that coming.... Think of throwing a small rock or pebble into water. What happens? Ripples, right? As they move away from the entry point, they become larger and farther apart. The ones near where the rock was thrown are small and close together. Each ripple is like a timeline. The ones on the outside have their past as this timeline’s future. This present is another’s future – and so on and so forth. That is one possible scenario. Another is that all the timelines are operating simultaneously. Presents are presents. Pasts are pasts. Futures are futures. There really is no way of knowing.

Anyway, what adds another element of undue paranoia and fear to all this for me is thinking that one day – even though I’d be dead – this could happen. That a million years in the future, people will be living in Orwell’s twisted, demented little world. Or that right now, somewhere out there, there are people who are getting vaporized, yes va-por-ized, for what they think.

I would never make it. I would be one of the first ones to go. The Thought Police would come knocking at my door at night and vaporize me. I can’t do it – I wouldn’t be able to. Why? Because in this timeline, people are given the freedoms – yes, even in communism because Big Brother is its own type of government; in fact, it makes communism look like democracy. They are given freedoms that the people in the novel aren’t given. Yes, there is oppression, but nothing like what Orwell describes. People are used to these freedoms. They are accepted and comfortable. If I were born, however, into that timeline, Orwell’s disturbing life would be accepted. Because that would be all that I would know – I would never really know of any freedoms at all.

I am somewhat disturbed by this novel. It scares me a little, and twists my stomach. But I am glad that I am reading it. It makes me step back and ask myself what can be done to avoid this. It makes me ask what I can do. I don’t want to ever think of living in a world like 1984. Come on – books and writing are a threat to Big Brother? They wouldn’t have to worry about vaporizing me, because I’d sooner throw myself from the tallest building I could find. Live without books and writing? Yeah, right. Like that will ever happen for me.

But because he is a hypocrite and I am an anarchist, it makes me feel somewhat better about things. Until I start thinking. Then that all goes out the window. His sense of detail makes things so much more lucid. In fact, I can almost feel what the characters are feeling – and I’m not even done with the first part yet. My hair will be gray by the time I finish this book, I swear. According to the Quantum Timeline, this could happen in the future, or it could be happening now. That helps make it scarier. It’s like something gory and disturbing that one so longs to look away from but just can seem to tear their eyes away. That’s what I feel like when I read this novel. But I’m glad that I’m reading it, because it makes me step back and evaluate what I’m doing for the world. Therefore, the correlation between my father’s topic of choice – being Quantum Timelines – and Orwell’s novel is sound in a way that’s so crazy that it actually makes a lot of sense in that it makes my soothing mantra of hypocrites and anarchy seem as a futile prayer at best.