The illusion of choice.
This is a tale of a man called Harold. Harold worked at a fast food restaurant; he stood at his station day in and day out looking up at a screen. The screen told him what to cook, how to cook it and where to put it once he had cooked it. He was happy with his job, his wife, his life. But then all of a sudden, when he was standing at his station he looked up at the screen and nothing was there, there were no instructions or directions to tell him what to do. Harold felt a small unfamiliar feeling of uncertainty and before he knew it, Harold had already begun his adventure.
Harold stood at his station for a while; he noticed how time began to drift away faster and faster whilst his glazed eyes stared up at the screen. He had no idea how long had passed. Minutes? Hours? Days? Months? He knew that he would have to brave leaving his station soon. So, with this in mind, he took a sharp breath and lowered his spatula, giving him a grand feeling of dropping a great burden from himself. He pulled his eyes away from the screen and looked towards the exit sign on his right, can Harold do it? Can he drop the world he knows to adventure into a world unknown? Harold slowly approached the sign and opened the large metallic door beneath it. Once he opened the large door he came to another room, a clean and well-furnished room with a set of two opened doors which lay in front of him alongside each other. Upon seeing these doors, Harold took the door on his right. But Harold decides to take the Left door instead, maybe he wanted to go and enjoy the employee lounge in all its glory. So Harold made his way through the glorious hallways and eventually made his way to the employee lounge. AND OH what a beautiful lounge it was, its perfect window frames, nicely placed water cooler and comfy couch, it sure was a wonder to any sane man’s eyes but eager to find out the reason to his lack of orders he continued on and left the employee lounge. Now that Harold had left the lounge he could finally continue to solve the problem at hand, so he entered another hallway and entered the first opened door on his left NOT the open door straight ahead. But Harold is so stupid that he has managed to go the wrong way again, it’s a wonder that anybody had even hired him at all. Listen Harold I think we have gotten off on the wrong foot; I had a whole amazing storyline planned out for you! It was going to be packed full of twists turns and sub plots which were oh so incredible in which you would have loved and I could have been the jolly narrator throughout your adventure! But instead you decide to be your own person and make choices, CHOICES of all things! Well Harold, you are standing at that elevator now after making that incorrect choice of not following my superb storyline, in which I took time to create! Let’s see you make another choice, do you want to go up or down? It’s a simple choice, up or down? You were making choices before without hesitation; do you really need me to draw out a straight line for you for you to simply find another way of going? Well, let me give you a hand, you should not not not not not not not not not not go maybe up then not down. So you have chosen to go up? Let us see where this rickety rusted elevator is going to take you. Why do you look so surprised? Are you shocked by the way the elevator rusted away before your eyes? You do understand that I have the power here, I flick the switches and can make things happen the way I want them to happen, you may think that you have choices as you walk around my playground but you are walking on a ground in which I have created. You are merely entering further and further into this illusion of control, this illusion of choice. Do you notice how this elevator doesn’t seem to stop? It just keeps going and going and going and going up until you reach the floor in which I want you to get off.
Oh look, here it is. Now Harold, after learning you truly are powerless against anything in which I can throw at you shall we try going on our little adventure once again? See that’s the spirit! Now let me clear my throat. Right then. When Harold came to a set of two doors, one blue and one red, Harold took the blue one. HAROLD! I said the BLUE one. Let us try this again, let’s make it a bit clearer this time, how about a few lights there and a large red arrow pointing to the door there and errrrmm… a nice big sign saying this way, and lets move that blue door out of the way. Now once more. When Harold came to a door he walked through the bright red door standing right in front of him. GOOD HAROLD! You have made a great choice to finally take some small steps down on our way to our grand adventure! Oh how exciting! We are going to have so much fun; we can slay monsters, solve mysteries and even find treasure! Wait a second, did I say we? It would be very inappropriate of me to take you on these adventures after all of these disobedient actions in which you have taken; the master would be most displeased. But do not worry about me I will venture on as I am sure there are many more Harold’s I can find to conform to anything I say. Did you think you were special Harold? That you are the only one who will have these opportunities? No, no, no there are many more lemmings to which I can take along on this journey.
So I’m afraid that this is the last room in which you will see Harold. Harold found himself in a small confided room, the room was dark and dreary and made Harold very upset as he sat curled up in the middle of the room. As he sat there crying to himself in the room he yelled out “WHY AM I HERE? WHO AM I? WHO IS THIS VOICE TALKING TO ME IN MY HEAD?” Unfortunately for Harold these are all questions which will be left unanswered for him, so his mind will forever be restless with all these unanswered questions. As he thought about his mind he noticed how his head started to ache like a million migraines being forced into his frontal lobe. He began to claw at his skull praying the pain would stop but it just kept getting worse and worse and worse, his brain began to slow as the pain grew deadlier and deadlier, his heart began to fall into submission and begin to fail. His eyes slowly closed shut and his body crashed to the floor until…
This is a tale of a young woman called Hailey; Hailey had a usual job, a usual life, a usual family and was having a usual day. Well, this was until five minutes after buying her lunch break coffee and she saw a young man in the middle of the street yelling about “voices in his head” and “who he was” before collapsing dead in the street. For a few moments, Hailey stood over the young man’s corpse wondering who he was and what had happened to him. But after a few seconds of pondering, she remembered she had an important meeting to get to, so she wiped the memory of the man from her mind, took a final look and walked away, on her way to work…