Huxley to Orwell

Wrightwood. Cal.

21 October, 1949

Dear Mr. Orwell,

It was very kind of you to tell your publishers to send me a copy of your book. It arrived as I was in the midst of a piece of work that required much reading and consulting of references; and since poor sight makes it necessary for me to ration my reading, I had to wait a long time before being able to embark on Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Agreeing with all that the critics have written of it, I need not tell you, yet once more, how fine and how profoundly important the book is. May I speak instead of the thing with which the book deals — the ultimate revolution? The first hints of a philosophy of the ultimate revolution — the revolution which lies beyond politics and economics, and which aims at total subversion of the individual’s psychology and physiology — are to be found in the Marquis de Sade, who regarded himself as the continuator, the consummator, of Robespierre and Babeuf. The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it. Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. I have had occasion recently to look into the history of animal magnetism and hypnotism, and have been greatly struck by the way in which, for a hundred and fifty years, the world has refused to take serious cognizance of the discoveries of Mesmer, Braid, Esdaile, and the rest.

Partly because of the prevailing materialism and partly because of prevailing respectability, nineteenth-century philosophers and men of science were not willing to investigate the odder facts of psychology for practical men, such as politicians, soldiers and policemen, to apply in the field of government. Thanks to the voluntary ignorance of our fathers, the advent of the ultimate revolution was delayed for five or six generations. Another lucky accident was Freud’s inability to hypnotize successfully and his consequent disparagement of hypnotism. This delayed the general application of hypnotism to psychiatry for at least forty years. But now psycho-analysis is being combined with hypnosis; and hypnosis has been made easy and indefinitely extensible through the use of barbiturates, which induce a hypnoid and suggestible state in even the most recalcitrant subjects.

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.

Thank you once again for the book.

Yours sincerely,

Aldous Huxley

Aprenderemos.

When we spend months without looking at the sky
Of the great and of the eternal we lose.
When we stop looking at each other's eyes
We are unable to understand ourselves.

When the mirror shows us the defects
And we try to fix ourselves, we get damaged.
When the load weighs on our back
Under our creations we fall.

Someday, I hope not too far away,
We will hold hands and we will love each other.
We will learn.

When fear governs our decisions
We are clouded options, we blind.

When this game of greed and money
Is overflowing in the desire, we sell.
When hatred becomes part of the discourse
We forget that before God we are equal.

When suffering suffices
Only then, my life, will we change.

Someday, I hope not too far away,
We will hold hands and we will love each other.
We will learn.


Aprenderemos

Tommy Torres


Camus and Magus

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal - Albert Camus


There are times when you don’t belong
There are people who go through their entire lives feeling like misfits.
Like an actor trying to play his part, faltering, forgetting his lines.
Not fitting in – not knowing what to say.
They look around at everyone not knowing how to be a part of the party that is life!
Playing their role with consummate ease, fooling everyone around.
While they look at themselves from outside, observing themselves. Sneering at themselves.
Going through the motions – not unhappy, not happy.
Wishing that they could disappear
Not knowing what they want – not wanting anything
Feeling that they should want something.
Feeling that they were capable but wanting to be so much more than just capable
Wanting to be extraordinary – and if not, then wasting away
Waiting for the moment of truth to crystallize, for something to change
For something to fall in place, for the pieces to come together
Feeling fragile yet so tough. Much like a spider’s web
So delicate yet strong.
They become so good at not reflecting
Of getting immersed in the welcome mundaness everyday life
Adept at not looking life in the face
Sometimes days go without them thinking of any such thing
Without being constantly aware of their truth
Of their coldness they hide deep, deep within
A bitterness at not being what they desire
Not being great, not having that one thing
That one thing that made them different from everyone
Comfortably and blissfully numb


Amber Azam

What is love?


A letter to a daughter seldom seen (perhaps never even written... what?... but there are words)...

”When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world. I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.

This universal force is LOVE.

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.

Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.

Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.

Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals.

For love we live and die.

Love is God and God is Love.

This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned
to drive at will.

To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation. If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy.

If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released. When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.

Your father

Whomever penned the words to whoemever Lieserl may have been and whatever flaws the latter may contain, there is enough worth in the sum total of words for me to put them here. To ponder. To question. To remember. To understand.