"You're thoughts aren't of your own."

It's a bold claim, but let's explore this thought a little further, firstly with a video I recently encountered:

Basically the idea is that we don't produce our own thoughts. Like in the video, when the two professional advertisers were given the task by Derren Brown, a magician and mentalist, to come up with a logo for the marketing campaign for stuffed animals, Brown was able to predict the end result based on the visual cues placed around the taxi drive the two men were taken by to the test.

One might get upset about this, that what we produce doesn't inherently come within from us but the surroundings.

That our thoughts weren't as unique as we thought.

That the free will and ability to choose by ourselves is compromised.

It might be quite of an hit for your ego.

However, don't get upset of being a "sock puppet" of your environment just yet.

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You see, it is rather inevitable that there is an environment to compare our thoughts; if you were born and lived in a complete darkness - which is all you knew of - would you be able to pin down your personality, without being able to observe your reactions to stimuli? Would you be able to create concepts? Would do you be able to even think in the first place because you wouldn't know of a language? (The question whether language is needed for thinking is completely another question though.)

Such a thought experiment is highly abstract and in no way practical in the real world because a baby wouldn't develop at all if kept in a dark room for life: it would leave the baby completely mentally handicapped, because environment and interaction is vital for the development of an infant. Even not only spoken enough to could leave the baby socially disabled for the rest of his/her life, because during the early years they start taking giant leaps, not only by walking, but developing the basis for everything that one needs to become a "human", so to speak, as an adult.
^{(I remember @tarazkp mentioning in some post that 85% of the brain develops during the first 3 years. Whatever that actually means in practice, I'm not sure. Amount of brain cells? Connections? Still, it is safe to say the brain has a rapid development early on.)}

There is no human without our environment, human is an active participant of its own surroundings. If we could exist in a void, we would be Gods, of non-material pure spiritual beings (which we obviously are not).

Even though you aren't the exact source inherently producing your thoughts, you are the filter that makes its own interpretation of a given data through your own personal experience. And that's the thing! Your subjective experience is unique from everyone else. Even if you reach the same conclusions, the process of reaching those is still one of a kind.

You feel already better about yourself my special snow flake?

But this is assuming you think in the first place. Because this thinking, a secondary evaluation through a slow thought process isn't as effortless as the implicit, unconscious learning - which is quite useful and necessary preventing our brains overwhelming in the face of enormous amounts of information. Thus, most learning happens "behind the scenes" without us even realizing how. Walking, biking, talking. You don't really know how learning that stuff works, it just happens as you try long enough, and it is rather useful because without it you wouldn't be able to walk and talk at the same time.

Unfortunately, an easy way to learn also comes with a trade-off: we can be easily tricked and "programmed". And advertisers, for example, are ruthlessly taking full advantage of this. By only presenting you the delicious and attractive products enhanced with a sexy model that implies you'll inherit the good looks when using the product, or that you'll become satisfied after purchasing a product x, you will absorb and learn some of it unconsciously. This is why you might start thinking "McDonalds" when the hunger strikes, instead of "I should prepare a meal."

So, the inevitable fate of our human lives is that we learn stupid things and habits when we are influenced by these "attacks". This is almost impossible to avoid while being exploited by our own psychology.

But the good thing is - even if we can't have full control over our minds, we can choose what we want to be influenced with, or blatantly put, decide what we want to brainwash ourselves with.

Why ignorance is a bliss (kinda)

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I myself hardly watch or read any news, or watch television. Those rare cases I do, it's actually with a gathering of my friends while having a commentary on the stupid nature of it all while watching this IQ lowering box. Ironic, I know, but way funnier than doing it alone. And it has provided some meme value at least.

But really: after being alienated from television, watching the crap and advertising today makes my face go into an elephant fuck (an excellent Finnish proverb) for the quality of it - which is nonexistent, excluding few exceptions I can probably count with a single hand.

One could ask how necessary is it really to be bombarded with adverts to pay for your time to watch the programs that are not very instructive to begin with, or to watch the world burn on the news. What does it help knowing there is something going to shit on the other side of the world? It's not like you're trying to go fix the situation with this info now anyway, are you? How many people do you know who have started donating after vicariously witnessing a problem in some country? After the act of passively observing hundreds of times, desensitized, to the point where the catastrophes have become less relevant than what our neighbor had eaten for breakfast.

You don't care, unless you have a personal connection to that place. But it's fine, because we can't hold the sorrows of the whole world on our small shoulders alone.

So, maybe there is some benefit for avoiding exposure for the shit altogether, and instead surround ourselves with some good stuff that - instead of pulling and luring us down - will elevate us towards our potential where we actually want to be, maybe causing us to do something decent on the side. Well, that's what has happened to me with

Steemit

After getting to know like-minded people through Steemit and Steemchat, discussing matters with them has become extremely stimulating and has sparked up fires for a number of topics (for the good and the bad). Even some of what I have said or done in Steemit or chat has caused a kick in someones head, which is quite amazing to me!

We basically surround each others with great people (subjective term, thus debatable) and brainwash and poke each others every once in a while sometimes accidentally resulting with an emergence of something pretty cool, which onward might awaken another idea with another reader, and so on...

So, missing the sensationalist news of the Big Kims (That chubby North Korean and the Fake Ass Lips) doesn't really wire any particularly useful neurological connections in your brain, so don't worry: you'll probably end up being more of a help by not being a moving and reacting sack scrolling the news on how the conflict in Far East hasn't still yet settled because USA likes oil too much. Without the headlines that only sell someone else's misery for you to read about.

TL;DR: don't be sad not having a complete free will because you can at least brainwash yourself by being surrounded with good stuff.

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_{Pictures from Pexels.}