The Trick to Controlling Humans

"For Rat Kiley...facts were formed by sensation, not the other way around"

                                                                                 ~Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

I love feeling. I love emotions. To observe them through other people is extraordinary. One's hate, love, fear; They are  intangibles shared either through accuracy or exaggeration (the one more commonly chosen.) The constant use of lies, of unintentional false details people love to add. All things done to dramatize a story and bring others in. To make others interested, curious. And to evoke feelings just as the original experience had done for the story-teller. It is what humans do. Who we are make it that way. But, it is not always a good thing, emotion. Media is probably the best example out there. Media. The thing many people live their lives by, base their standards on, the very people who can cause so much trouble because of emotion.

Although exaggeration is sometimes necessary to share such feelings (those evoked from experience or ideas) it can masterly prohibit others from their own beliefs. Sounds pretty crazy huh? Quite a big leap. How can emotion stop others from valuing their own views? Is it not the thing that makes humans support what they believe in even more so? This is the precise reason which makes feelings capable of doing the exact opposite. Instead of providing the facts, that allow others to choose for themselves their own reaction, falsities and exaggerations skew reality, warp it, and turn it inside out. The mind in return becomes so evoked by a myth it can no longer see truth among a mess of sensation. People then go on to assume, hurt others, and lie even more to explain the emotions handed down by the previous person. In the end, everything becomes twisted and completely wrong.

Mark Twain had once said, "often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth." I do not in fact disagree with this. Conveying your feelings through exaggerations and mistruths is important. To have others understand personal situations can mean the world to a speaker. But case by case, it is still crucial to have the truth as well, so that in the end they can choose how they feel themselves. When people stop acting on others' emotions, and prevent media's contorted stories from shaping their own perspective, a change will come about for the world and the way people see those around them, a change for the better.