George: “After all, ontology precedes oncology.”

Webber: “I do believe you mean ‘epistemology’.”

George: “Please… Has there ever been anything more cancerous than knowledge? From knowledge, man learnt to sharpen arrows, create dictatorships, and build atomic bombs!”

Webber: “That’s true, but man has also created suturing needles, democracies, and nuclear power plants.”

George: “All capitalist gain. They all amount to men fighting men for power and material goods. And what happens when a man gets old? His things become meaningless. His whole life is thrown away on gaining luxury and he is alone. He is distracted from the meaningful things.”

Webber: “Only if he abuses his wealth and power! If he moderates those, he can provide for a lover and a family.”

George: “Yes, and only to watch those go too through death or distance.”

Webber: “That’s true as well, but what else is there to live for in this life? To seek the truth, to love and be loved, to be happy – to avoid these simply because they are impermanent is ridiculous. I would rather know love before death than not. After all, cancer or not, we all die. Some of us just know what will kill us.”

Those with little knowledge are the easiest to enslave.

The human mind can only be strong through practice and learning. Ignorance is the mightiest of all Trojan horses. It forces its way through the gates of the mind. No invitation is needed. When someone says something that sounds like what you want to hear, you latch onto their very words – whether that person be liberal, conservative, or confused, it matters not.

Likewise, when you don’t know what you believe on an issue, you take refuge in those who speak with confidence. They must know something. They can be trusted. Ignorance of rhetoric is doubly violent to the simple mind for this reason. For all who are like sheep will be led astray.

Last, if you have the wrong ideas in the first place – if your trust of authority and ideology has been misguided already – you will be led astray more as a rebel. You step up to shout with those shouting your thoughts. But have you actually stopped to ask what you believe in? What is good? What is right? What is bad or wrong or disgusting? If not, then you are simply a slave to yourself and those who dare to lead you, a commander of callous clockwork.

Those who take time to challenge themselves from both sides of an issue will likely be best suited to fight the cultural charge to enslave their minds. These are the ones who have realized that they know nothing, but that they know nothing. Admitting limitations is the first step, but experiencing this truth is the rest of the staircase. Humility will next be your guide, followed by patience and compassion. For all others still have much to learn and they usually do not know that they do.