People are so malleable. For all our evolutionary prowess, one thing we absolutely suck at is defending our own interests against words. It is a terrible, terrible matchup, really. We have figured out how to survive in the wild against outright physical hostilities like fires and storms. We’re somewhat figuring out how to overcome less outright physical threats like diseases and infections. But when it comes to being fucked in the head, we are sitting ducks. It is a simple matter of someone coming along, saying the words, with the right turn of phrase, the right meter, the right prosody and that's it! You are screwed. It is a lost battle 100% of the time because evolution is yet to catch up and wire in a defense mechanism for that kind of bloodless assault. It can be lies, the truth, or just bullshit. As long as it is said right, it is a no-contest! It is such a hopeless case that you could come across two sets of words, phrased right, but advocating two completely opposing ideas, and still believe in both of them at the same time. And this is beyond just being enamored in a masturbatory, connoisseury kind of way. You will buy into ideas and thoughts to the point where you start viewing your own life differently and making actual life choices based on the words you have heard.

Sample this:

Does it break my heart? Of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of. I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent. I never thought about things at all.

Everything changed.

The distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world. It wasn't the bombs and burning buildings; it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go. Is ignorance bliss? I don't know. But it's so painful to think. And tell me, what did thinking ever do for me? To what great place did thinking ever bring me?

I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times...but never once into it.

And now, this:

People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt.

If you are able to appreciate, agree, or disagree with both these pieces, you know how screwed we are. And if you are not able to appreciate, agree, or disagree with either of them, you have no idea how screwed you are...

In the time of my confession,
In the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet
Floods every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me
Reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger
And the morals of despair
Don't have the inclination
To look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold
This chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment
I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles,
In every grain of sand

Oh, the flowers of indulgence
And the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath
Of conscience and good cheer
Oh the sun beat down upon the steps
Of time, to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness
And the memory of decay
I gaze into the doorway
Of temptation, and refrain
And every time I pass that way
I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey
I come to understand
That every hair is numbered
Like every grain of sand

I have gone from rags to riches
In the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream,
In the chill of a wintry light
In a bitter dance of loneliness
Fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence
On each forgotten face
I hear the aging footsteps
Like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there,
Other times it's only me
I am hanging in the balance
Of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling,
Like every grain of sand