Thought Play

How to adjust and rearrange your thought patterns

Note: Adapted from a transcript of Emma’s video.

Have you ever thought that there are some things in the world that really suck? That the way that people act and think around you, it's just kind of bollocks? Yeah, me too.

Do you ever wish you could do something about that? Well, guess what? You can. I call it thought play.

Most of the time when we think about the world and how it works, we just kind of accept what is a true thing that cannot be changed. But the fact of the matter is that most things in life are just made up by people. Everything from the economy to moral values are just a bunch of things that other people thought of and agreed on. Unless something's coded into the natural world and is actually a law, then it's probably something that humanity made up. Definitions of success, what happens in the afterlife, all things that people just decided to make up.

So the world is not as immutable and solid and set in stone as you might think it is. And there are plenty of things in the world which might make you feel alienated and apart from people, and maybe even a little bit depressed. Things like being told that you're going to go to hell for certain things, or you're not successful, that you're not moral, or you're not fitting in and that's a bad thing… Eh, bugger that!

For me, thought play is the same concept as Neo in the Matrix with the spoon. Just believing that basically ‘there is no spoon’. That it's not the spoon that bends; it's actually yourself. So, taking society's rules and disregarding them as being ‘no spoon’ and then realising that you can change your own perspectives all by yourself.

There are really only three rules that I have for thought play. I was actually going to call it Thought Lego, but I thought the good people at Lego might have a problem with this. So, I called it generic thought play. But if you think about things in terms of Lego bricks, it's probably going to make a little bit more sense.

My three rules for thought play are, first of all, disconnect as many associated ideas as possible. An example of that is people's actions and their motives. Just because someone performs an action out there in society, doesn't necessarily mean that the motive is exactly what you thought. Now you can do that with everything from people's thoughts and actions all the way up to, “if you believe in God, is God actually omnipotent?” Why do those two things have to go hand in hand? What, just because someone told you that was true? That's all up for grabs as far as I'm concerned.

The next rule of thought play is reconnecting those pieces, just like Lego bricks again. Taking alternate perspectives and ideas, and rearranging them in any shape that you want. You can do this for a number of mechanisms: getting alternate perspectives and doing research, using common sense and logic, or even imaginative storytelling. An example of that is taking political ideologies, and rather than just having left and right-wing observations, you can take things and make independent views. Funnily enough, that's why there are independent politicians.

The third and final rule of thought play is simply to make sure that your final structure is actually sound. When you're building something out of Lego, you can't really have a very narrow base and something very chunky at the top, or else your structure is going to tip over. So make sure that whatever that thought is that you're reconstructing actually sits well with both your morals and values, and logic. Because if they don't sit well with those two things, the entire thing is going to collapse and fall over.

And that's basically it. Disconnect existing components, reconnect them in a different way, and as long as your structure is sound, it should sit better in your mind. Because the object of thought play is to rearrange those thoughts just so they sit better in your mind. Remember, you're not trying to change the world with this. You're just trying to make sure that your thoughts sit okay with you, so you can get along with your life.

Now, you can do this with just about anything, any old thought. And as long as it doesn't contradict known scientific rules or things that you know as common sense, then it's all up for grabs. I'm going to give you an example today that will show you not only how you can disconnect existing ideas, but reconnect two ideas that are seemingly completely opposite. And for my example today, I'm going to use the moon landing conspiracy.

There are a vast majority of people who believe that Apollo 11 landed on the moon and that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin actually did get out and walk on the moon. But there is still a small percentage of the population that believes the whole moon landing was faked. That the photos that were shown to the public are not real, and it's some big evil conspiracy by the American government. You've probably heard the theory that they got Stanley Kubrick to shoot the whole thing in Hollywood and it never actually happened! Now, these two ideas seem to be polarly opposite and could never be met in the middle in any way, shape, or form. But I'm going to show you how it can be done by doing a bit of thought play.

First of all, what we want to do is disconnect the troublesome pieces. And for me, the two pieces that are troublesome and connected together is the idea that the moon landing is fake, and that it's part of a government conspiracy. So, you know, the government's trying to pull the wool over your eyes, and they're doing it for some evil, nefarious reason. So we're going to take those two bits and we're going to pull them apart straight away.

The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add a base of known logic. Now, one of the major arguments that people use when they say that the moon landing is a conspiracy, is that some of the photographs and the footage looks fake. So what I'm going to do is, first of all, I'm going to take a base of common sense logic about what we already know about photography.

I'm old enough to remember the days of analog film taking and when you had to drop your film in at the old Kodak place and get it developed. Unlike today where you can just take multiple shots on your iPhone and then if you don't like them you can delete them as you go, back in the day you used to have to wind your camera on, take a number of photos and then hope to hell that they turned out.

If you've ever had that experience of having film developed, you'll know that probably half the packet turned out pretty badly. And if you've been on a trip or is at someone's birthday party, maybe it was a milestone birthday, it can often be very disappointing. Half your photos turn out with someone's thumb over half the picture, someone's got their eyes closed, or they're blinking or pulling a weird face, or they're just blurry and you know you can't tell what's in the photo. Sometimes they're skewed, they're out of angle, people's heads are cut off, all sorts of horrible things can go wrong with photography.

Because we have this known thing that photography can go horribly horribly wrong, and we have the argument that some of the photos are fake, we can now reconstruct the moon landing in a way that incorporates all these three pieces together—

• the moon landing occurred,

• that some of the photos are fake, and

• we'll use a base of knowing what happens when you take photographs back in the day when you had to get it all developed.

I'm going to tell you a little story of how I think this all might have occurred…

President Kennedy sends Neil and Buzz up to the moon, and they get out there, they have a great time. And they've got their checklist of things that astronauts have got to do while they're on the moon. So they're going to do their sciencey stuff, they're going to collect rocks. They've got to have a play about and actually experience what it's like to be a human on the moon, because no one's ever been there before. And Lord knows when they come back to Earth, there's going to be a dozen reporters in their face wanting to know “what is it like to be on the moon?!” So they've got to fart about and have some fun.

And while they're doing that, they also have to get around and take photographs and take film, and they have to do it while they're in those big chunky old spacesuits. So poor Neil and Buzz are up there on the moon, they're doing their best, they're taking their photos. They get back in the pod and they come back to Earth. They land successfully and everybody's deliriously happy, and President Kennedy is over the moon, so to speak, because he's the first one to ever send man to that glorious little rock that orbits our planet!

However, when NASA get the film developed, well… half of them have got Neil's thumb in the way. Some of them are a bit blurry. And when they go through the whole lot of the footage, half of it's out of focus and some of it's not very good. Kennedy calls in the boys and says “Guys, what happened here with the photographs? I was hoping to give the world a really great show. I was hoping to show the world exactly what a marvelous achievement this is, but the photos are rubbish!"

And they say “Well, Mr. President, it wasn't that easy. We had the big clunky gloves on and we were, you know, trying to do stuff. We were bouncing around and, you know, there's no atmosphere on the moon, so the light's all different. And hell, we're not trained photographers, we're astronauts!”

Kennedy says “Fair point...”, calls in his White House people and says “Guys, what are we going to do about this? We spent millions of dollars sending these guys to the moon and half the footage is rubbish”. And one of the guys says “Mr. President, I think we need a film expert.”

Kennedy says “Well, who's going to know anything about space and film?…”

They say “Well, look, there's a young filmmaker. He's called Stanley Kubrick, and he made this amazing film. It looks like the guy's in space. And not only that, Sir, his background is actually in still photography. So not only is he going to know what to do with a film, he'll know what to do with the photographs as well!”

Kennedy says, “Brilliant! Bring him in…”

So Stanley Kubrick gets to go to the White House (this is a good story for him, too).

Kubrick rocks up. Kennedy says “Mate, what can you do with this footage and these photographs?”

Stanley looks at it and goes “Jeez, you haven't got much to work with...”

Kennedy says “But I promised the people of Earth! I particularly promised the people of America the best show. We spent millions of dollars! You know, we need to make a cracking great tale out of this. Besides, I'm going to stick this to the Russians really good. So, you know, we need a good show, Stanley. What can you do?”

Kubrick says, “I'm not too sure”. And Kennedy says, “Well, what would you do if you're making a movie?”

Stanley says, “Look, to be honest, Sir, I'd go and do some reshoots.” Kennedy goes, “Can't do that! I've blown all the NASA budget already! And I think people would notice if we sent them back to the moon another time!”

Stanley sits there and he thinks about this for a moment. He says “Sir, I might have an idea. We'll reenact it.” Kennedy says “Brilliant! That's a great idea!”

Kubrick says “Yeah, I think we can do it. You know, I've got enough pictures here. You've got the guys that were actually there. They can tell me what it was like. What we'll do is we'll go to Hollywood. We'll set up a stage and we'll reenact it. So we'll use the combination of the real footage, and the real photographs, and we'll do the reenactment stuff. And I think, with the combination of that together, I can edit it into something good for you.”

Kennedy says, “Great, you're going to save us! Look, is anyone going to be able to tell that this stuff isn't real?”

Kubrick says, “Oh, look, Mr. President, it's the late 60s. Everybody's got tiny little black and white TVs. No one has any idea of digital photography or techniques of spotting fake photographs. We'll be fine...” Poor Stanley…

So he goes off to Hollywood. He takes his astronauts, and he recreates the moon landing. He gets his footage. Him and Kennedy give the earth the greatest show that they have ever seen!…

That's how you could take the idea that the moon landing actually happened, marry it together with the idea of fake footage, and have it not be some conspiracy. In fact, when you take that conspiracy motive out of the picture, and replace it with something very simple based on the logic that we know (about photography not always going to plan) you can take this and make a coherent and rather plausible tale. And not only that, but it stands up to logic. It stands up to ethics because it's a win-win situation, and it's believing the best in everybody.

Also, thinking about that story just makes me happy :-)

It means the moon landing happened. It also means Kubrick got to do his reenactment, and all his little hints in The Shining were correct. So everybody wins in this scenario.

If I was at a pub or a bar and two people were arguing over this, not only do I have a great tale that's win-win, but I've got a useful tool for bringing people together, because not only could it diffuse the paranoia and tinfoil-hat-mentality of a conspiracy theorist, but it might actually help people who are anti-conspiracy-theory have a little bit of empathy for people who do believe those far-out ideas. You know, and maybe get them a little bit more towards an agreement. Maybe they won't be arguing anymore, they can get on with having a beer.

Now, whether or not you believe in conspiracy theories, or you just simply think that the moon landing happened, this is still a good example of how you could take other, simpler ideas (not so tinfoil hat), and rearrange them in your own mind—by pulling apart things that you thought were inevitably stuck together (and may not be) and reconstructing it with new ideas and new perspectives into something that's a bit more win-win.

But what would I know? I'm just one person with OE sharing my ideas in order to spread some happiness!