“Where do I start?”—this is a dialogue with oneself that may lead every reader of this article to turn inward, to know themselves better, and to put dots over letters; meanings become clearer, and a more complete picture emerges. Nothing comes from nothing, and every event in our history, since our birth, leaves a mark on “Who are you?”, “Why are you who you are?”, and how your consciousness of your small and larger society—or of your planet or the universe, or parallel universes if your knowledge expands—was formed.
You are a collection of values, ideas, and practices, which your being and surrounding society translate into a mental image of yourself.
Consciousness is considered a mental state through which reality and the truths happening around us are perceived, via human interaction with their environment. It matures gradually, as a person perceives everything around them through the channels of consciousness represented in their senses, which transmit to the mind to interpret, assemble, and comprehend.
Consciousness can also be partial, occurring when thoughts and concepts are limited to one aspect or perspective, rather than encompassing all interrelated levels and dimensions that affect and are affected by each other throughout the process of life’s evolution.
Each of our consciousnesses shapes our present and future, and our collective consciousness can do the same for all of humanity.
For example, I am aware of the importance and priority of education, knowledge, and healthcare for citizens. Over time, with accumulated experience and deeper understanding, I redefined them as rights rather than services. My political outlook changed with renewed awareness: acquiring these rights should not depend on an individual’s ability to pay, but on society’s capacity to fund them, so that no child or youth is deprived under any circumstances.
I believe every reader should understand their own psychological and mental makeup, as well as that of those who read or listen to them. Do the ideas and principles they discuss form some kind of pattern? If so, what are the foundations on which their coherence is built?
A friend once asked me: “Why, and from where, did the idea of dialogues with dreamers of tomorrow come? How did your consciousness ignite, and your enduring faith in youth’s ability to innovate and create grow, despite what appears in society as lack of awareness?”
These were all questions I hadn’t thought to answer until after questions from youth, and I found that writing this article might be appropriate to justify the motives and structure of our society as individuals and as a collective, and of each of us regarding who controls our lives—politically, culturally, and through the people we read and listen to.
We must understand that when the “idea” comes into the light, it becomes a tremendous force, and the conscious mind is capable of respecting an idea even if it does not fully believe in it.
Al-Aqqad said: when we link ideas to people, we deprive ourselves of a good idea if it comes from the opposite side, and we get entangled in a foolish idea if it comes from a friend.
Our awareness of history tells us that the originator of a new idea may be considered a criminal within a rigid cultural framework, until their idea succeeds, at which point the idea suddenly has a thousand “fathers.”
I also recall Ibn Rushd’s words: “Ideas have wings, and it is impossible to restrain their spread even if we burn the books containing them or kill the person who invented them.”
In any case, I have found that I may not agree with an idea, but I do not quarrel with the thinker. I liked Galileo’s saying: “It is easy to understand any truth after it has been discovered, but the idea lies in its discovery.” People may die, nations may rise or fall, but ideas persist; their relevance does not expire if they can withstand the fixed beliefs that people find comforting and integrate into their collective consciousness.
We must understand that an idea gains power when it captures the minds of the masses, or when it is repeatedly imposed on the public’s consciousness. Today, there are sciences on how to do this in the modern era, creating “facts” that have no proof but may spread widely, regardless of validity.
Looking at the world around me, what I fear most is the manipulation of our consciousness and thoughts. Now I see and realize that consciousness may be manufactured by those who have the technology to create what does not exist and present it as truth in people’s minds, even intimidating anyone who doubts or thinks differently. It is a manufactured consciousness, and once established and reinforced, people begin to believe it—eventually ready to sacrifice their comfort, even their lives, for a cause that was created and became a part of collective awareness.
The wars between Russia and Ukraine, Israel’s desire to annihilate the Palestinian people, the Israel-Iran conflict, and before that the invasion of Iraq, followed by the rise of the Assad regime in Syria, and the West’s multi-standard, highly biased, and historically untrustworthy stance—all indicate that European and American governments may be more extreme, less humane, and less credible than we imagined, both now and likely in the future.
What happens among humans and their awareness of events—whether by believing political claims, creating false collective awareness in minds, turning friends into enemies and perpetrators into victims—can result in lost truths over two generations, leaving us living with artificially constructed awareness created by those who control the tools and craft the scenarios, especially those who dominate media and social networks.
It is a puppet-show consciousness, made by those who pull the strings that tell the story of existence on this stage.
The question is: do you know who you are, and do I know who I am? Are we puppets on the stage of life—personally, nationally, globally—or can we one day pull the strings ourselves?
It is the knowledge, defining the values we truly want, and humanizing in contrast to digitization that may possess us without spirit. Using science to create manufactured consciousness can turn it into a truth that requires no proof.
