Inner truths

August 30, 2024

ISLAMABAD – ONE of the hardest things to do in this world is to face and tell yourself the truth. In the world that we inhabit, our roles are more or less defined; we wear our masks, and say the ‘right’ things in the appropriate context.

Sadly, it is true that the more we surround ourselves with these external details of our lives, the more submerged our inner voices tend to be. It is also true that one of the ways in which people can be controlled is to never permit them to listen to their inner voices, or to overwhelm their narrative of reality with another one and to reiterate it over and over until it crowds out whatever that individual may once have been able to deduce by himself.

This is how people are brainwashed. Uighur prisoners in China, for instance, must repeat a version of alternate reality several times so that they become ever more distanced from their own inner voices. Mind control is real, and its chief goal is to silence a person’s dialogue with themselves. It is hardly surprising that mind control is used as an instrument of coercion in several settings — in families, societies and by the state.

On the other hand, our inner voices can also be the instruments of our private rebellions, especially when they are weaponised. There are many situations in life, particularly in countries such as Pakistan, where so many of our roles and circumstances are defined by duty and obligations that it appears as if there is little room for independent thought or choice.

The repercussions of action impact many lives, and so individual action or thought seems either impossible or too harmful to exercise without feeling mental strain, guilt or remorse. The tension between our wants and needs as