The Observer is the thing we all have at the back of our minds. It’s the part that talks, and you probably think that this voice is you. It tries to be rational, it judges everything, and it’s likely nihilistic.
Then there’s the Actor. It doesn’t talk; it simply feels and wants. Ultimately, it’s the one who controls your actions, and it’s lazy. The Observer thinks the Actor needs to stop complaining and start moving. It’s probably right.
What happens when you put them together in a single individual?
The Observer doesn’t control anything.
The Actor is lazy and sad, not getting what it wants. Its laziness
frustrates the Observer.
The Observer tries to rationalize the cause of its sadness.
“Why are we here? Does this mean anything? Why would anyone want a world
without purpose?”
The Actor doesn’t care about purpose. It doesn’t even understand what
that means.
It’s sad because it doesn’t get anything it wants.
The Observer is merely a free spirit chained to a complaining rock.
“I must get through it. It will pass eventually. I just need to stop
complaining and act.”
The Observer starts to think it can and should be in control. It forces
the Actor to act.
The Actor gets some of its desires met, and its sadness slowly goes
away.
The Observer justifies its newly found optimism with higher goals such
as money, glory, or the betterment of mankind.
The Observer, thinking it has suddenly become a stoic hero, doesn’t
realize it’s just training the Actor with Pavlovian conditioning.
But it’s working. The Observer likes the action, and the Actor likes the
treats.
“I can become the richest man in the universe.”
The Observer realizes the extent of its powers. Now that it controls the
Actor, it can do anything it wants.
But it only thinks it “wants.” It’s just following rationalized
goals.
At first, walking towards these goals satisfied the Actor. But
inevitably, the Actor’s desires and these goals drift apart.
The Actor doesn’t have any justification for its desires.
And the Observer doesn’t hear or listen. It doesn’t even think the Actor
is real anymore.
If what it thinks it wants becomes what it does, the Actor is
irrelevant.
Enthusiasm fades, but it doesn’t stop it.
Now that the individual is purely driven by reason, they become
predictable and manipulable. Language can become mind control.
You can’t control the Actor, but it’s irrelevant; you control the
actions.
All of this creates sadness and frustration at the bottom of the Actor’s
heart.
The pieces of metal the Observer tried to put in it didn’t turn it into
a cyborg.
It just bleeds.
But one day, accidentally, the Observer reaches “the end of
thoughts.”
It has been thinking of the same thing for so long that its infinite
flow of words starts to slow down, then stop.
And the Actor is still here.
It says, “I like this weather,” “I like this tea,” or “I like walking
this mountain.”
The Observer takes some time to realize. But what was it thinking?
It doesn’t exist for glory, money, or creating a better world.
There is this child who speaks so softly of things so benign.
The meaning of its life is to take care of it.
And that is enough.