I was recently asked to submit a short piece to the student newspaper ("The Bottom Line") focused on "something that would change everything."
Here's what I wrote:
IF WE COULD READ EACH OTHER'S MINDS ...
my world, and yours, would no longer be the same. We’d talk less; why bother? Lectures might turn into meditations. Thoughtlessness might be true leadership.
Professors would be hit particularly hard: it would be tough to appear smarter than your next door neighbor.
Would it be a world where everybody would be honest, and friendly, where you can “exchange love for love … [and] … trust only for trust”? (Surprisingly, that quote is from Karl Marx). Actually, trust would be instant, and thus quite meaningless because we could not abuse it. We wouldn’t need exams or student honor codes.
We might see more action, and not just talk. Mentally, however, it would be a boring world. A world without seduction. A world without secrets, without pretense, without phoniness. Plain vanilla.
A world not worth living in.
