I Am Programmed

For the past couple of years I've been noticing - as in catching myself in the act - how much of my thinking, behavior and actions are programmed, so much so that I haven't observed very much at all that is original.

To that end I've made a conscious effort to notice, to ponder upon what could qualify as new thinking, or behaviors. I'd thought I'd found and example in my gym routines, where I've been modifying and upping the focus of, and difficulty of, my workout routines to improve my strength in certain body areas that have been experiencing aches and pains

I recently watched the Public TV program, The Brain with David Eagleman, which served to elucidate my ponderings by illustrating the brain's mechanics and their consequences. Since watching I've been able to more clearly and more completely watch my programming at work.

This morning I was watching  an interview on the Today Show with three women talking about their various religions and their desire to coexist with other's religions. It occurred to me that the entire conversation was a clear example of programmed thinking.

So I started to wonder, as we age, let's just say past the age of 65, what percentage of our thinking could be said to be original? Any? How much have we been programmed by the people, media, and environment around us? I mean 65 years is a lot of programming time!

Consider: we truck off to church once a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, to be told stories about how people behaved in the past; and how we are expected to copy those behaviors, and retell those same stories. Most religions have a) some element of defining good and bad behavior, b) some mystical leader who tells his/her followers how these behaviors should be maintained and spread to others, and c) an indisputable clarity about the rightness of their own version of the right behavioral doctrine.

All followers go through a kind of indoctrination. I recall as a child, being carted off to church, sitting through a "service", listening to what supposed wisdom was being espoused, at least the little that I could understand; and repeatedly practicing those programming ceremonies that claimed those who participated were "good" people. So naturally in a good/bad paradigm, that meant anyone not "good" was automatically "bad".

I sometimes wondered, "is there any other way to be?" Could I be neither good, nor bad? Could I be both? Do I really have to be one or the other? Is there some other paradigm for human beings? When I brought that up in Cataclysm, it didn't go over well. What if I was neither?, I asked. Would people still like me? Would I be acceptable? Could I survive? Should I survive? How did I arrive to this question?, my minister asked. Should I even be asking such things?

Throughout my religious training (Sunday School, Church, Cataclysm, Youth Group, Boy Scouts, Holidays, and holiday ceremonies, etc) did I ever hear anyone suggest that there might be other ways to think about these stories, this history, this behavioral indoctrination, this programming? Nope.

I do remember hearing a few people say, "think for yourself". I recall wondering on a few of those occasions, "what does that mean?'. Before I got the distinction voice-in-my-head, "I" was my thinking. There was no me separate from those never ending thoughts. And now the voice in my head is wondering, "how much of what is occurring as my thinking, have I ever invented?"