THINK!

These pages contain information designed to MAKE YOU THINK!  You can be led to figure out the answers yourself (Coyote), or you may choose to be given the information directly (Direct).  Please select from the menu on the left.

The Truman Show

I usually need to be dragged by my friends to see movies.  I don't even have a TV where I can watch the previews.  The Truman show was an exception.  I actually dragged my family to see the Truman Show.  I was facinated with the concept when I first heard about it on NPR. Consider a person who grew up in a world where everything around him was a prop, everyone around him was an actor... consider being watched every day by hundreds of people around the world on a TV show... and not knowing it.  Consider your life constantly being manipulated by someone.   This is Truman Burbank's reality.  He lives in a carefully controlled world designed for your viewing pleasure.  He has always lived in this world and knows nothing else.  The plot thickens when he begins to question his reality.  This concept forced me to consider my own life and how my life might be somewhat like Truman's.

COYOTE Style - Lead yourself to the answers

Question:  Truman's life was controlled by outside forces.   Could there possibly be forces (including many that we are unaware of) in our own lives that have controlled us?
Question/Answer: Who are the most influential people in our lives?   What drives us to do what we do every day?  Where did these desires come from and who influenced them?

Question:  If these influential people are influencing us, who is influencing them?
Question/Answer: Expand your vision and look to society.  How is society influencing those that are influencing us?  How did society get to the state it is at today?

Question:  How do we change the way society influences us and our children?
Question/Answer:  Look to the education of our children for your answer.  Our education system teaches us how to do certain things, but can you think of ways that creative thought is stifled in our schools?

Question:  What are the problems in the education system?
Question/Answer:  Ask the children!  Which is more important, what the child thinks, or what we think?

  Direct Answers

Question:  Truman's life was controlled by outside forces.   Could there possibly be forces (including many that we are unaware of) in our own lives that have controlled us?
Answer: Who are the most influential people in our lives?  For most of us, teachers and parents have controlled us for a good portion of our lives.   What drives us to do what we do every day?  What motivates us?  Where did these desires come from and who influenced them?  These desires came from our parents and teachers, and possibly, religious teachers as well.  For example, suppose a person was raised in a Christian school and was raised to believe in the biblical creation story.  This person has been taught this from all angles since an early age... from parents, teachers, and religious teachers.  Now try to describe evolution to this person... It just wouldn't wash over well.  We are trained from an early age what should motivate us and these motivations came from our teachers and parents.  However, teachers and parents are not to blame, for they have been taught the same way as well.

Question:  If these influential people are influencing us, who is influencing them?
Question/Answer: Expand your vision and look to society.  How is society influencing those that are influencing us?  Society is a strange bird.   These influential people in our life have been trained the same way we have been trained.   So in a way it is like a circle.  We teach the same thing to our children that we were taught.  Even with this mundane repetitive pattern, we manage to have a "breakthrough" of creative thought which we then imbed into this circle of thought.  This information is then passed on to our children and our children pass it on to our grandchildren.  It is like an unbroken circle.  The problem is that we are enlarging this circle of thought instead of breaking out of it and forming a different shape!  How did society get to the state it is at today?  Society has been built on these repetitive thoughts.  We have become so entrenched in these thoughts, that anything foreign is immediately rejected or requires expanding these thought circles to contain thoughts which can support the foreign thought.

Question:  How do we change the way society influences us and our children?
Question/Answer:  Look to the education of our children for your answer.  Our education system teaches us how to do certain things, but can you think of ways that creative thought is stifled in our schools?  A simple example will illustrate one way that creative thought is stifiled in our lives using the creation argument as an example.  A Christian parent would throw a fit if a school tought a strict evolutionist theory.  Does this parent have a right to be so upset?  I'd say yes and no.  Yes, because the parent is a major influence in the child's life and should remain as such.  No, because the child is actually presented with a dillema.   This child must make a choice.  I claim this is a good thing.  Out of confusion, creativity will enable the child to create order in his or her own mind.

Question:  What are the problems in the education system?
Question/Answer:  Ask the children!  Which is more important, what the child thinks, or what we think?  This is the key problem in our society.  Again, going back to the creationist issue we've introduced above... how do you handle the situation with the upset Christian parent?  The main question to ask this parent is if the parent respects their child as an individual.  If this parent truly respected her child as an individual, she would have to respect her child's thoughts.  If you respect your child as an individual, wouldn't you want to allow your child to choose for herself?  I claim, that in an ideal situation, the child would be taught by teachers and parents that there is more than one way to look at things and that the child has a choice as to what s/he believes.  What is it that scares us to allow our children to make decisions about basic things like our creation stories?   This takes a tremendous amount of courage on the part of the parent, but I would theorize that the less we impose on our children, the greater their ability to think for themselves at an earlier stage in their life.

Summary: Truman Burbank is an example of how an individual can be controlled.  Walking out of the movie, you should ask yourself:  How much have we been controlled in our lives?  Our parents and teachers have taught us as their parents and teachers have taught them creating an endless loop with little information added throughout the years.  In order to break out of this loop, we must look to parents and educators to change the way we are taught.  Our education system has taught us how to recall instead of how to think... break the loop, leave the Truman sound stage, live each day as the first day of your life!

More Information

The education system is ONLY THE BEGINNING!  How many hours of TV do you watch a day?  Do you wonder how this affects your thoughts?  Does it train us, or does it teach us how to think?  How does the government play a role in this?  Could our religions have entered this rut as well?  Think about the daily activities in your life, how society around you is configured...  then think of better ways!   This isn't paranoia, this is called using your brain!  Comments are welcome below...

Other links of interest:

• The Truman Show official website
• Eight ways to simply your life and have more fun