Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery: Freethinker or Well Programmed Automaton

Like Rome of old, each one of us knowingly or unknowingly incorporates personal experiences into our existing playbook; the repertoire of who we are and how we interact with the world around us. It can be as mundane and innocent as incorporating lines from movies into day-to-day communications with friends. I can recall how 25-40% of my vocabulary with friends in high school was driven from endlessly repeating lines from movies or television shows like: Stripes, Caddyshack, SCTV, Blade Runner, Harold and Maude, Repo Man, etc. Why, because in that community of friends, it was expected. It was understood that if you wanted to engage with these folks successfully, you needed to have a familiarity with these kinds of movies or shows. People gained their sense of identify from being in that group.