Frank is in the darkness

-Is there… anything we can do?

-No.

-I mean, for him. We can’t leave him in that pain.

-I know it’s painful to watch. Frank is acting in a very pathetic manner.

-Yeah… We could… You know, generate serotonin for him.

-No.

-Why?

-Because that wouldn’t fix the fundamental issues. It would merely hide the crisis than lies within him.

-What do you mean?

-Frank has fundamental issues he needs to fix. I can’t even guarantee he will be alive in six months.

-It’s THAT bad?

-Oh yes it is. The crisis he is facing right now is the most severe crisis he has ever faced. For the first time in his entire existence, his life itself is threatened.

-I understand, but why can’t we give him a boost?

-Because you can’t fix a problem with a band-aid. He needs fundamental changes to survive and adapt in this world. If we were to give him fake joy, or a fake boost, it would only be to see him suffer much more in the future. He needs to solve that issue, now. The more we wait, the less his chances of sucessfully solving it.

-You’re so smart, boss.

-That is why I am the boss.

-So, we do nothing?

-That’s not what I said. I only said Frank needs to fix his own issues. We go on with our lives and try to make him work correctly and hope for the best. That’s what we must all do. It’s a very simple human theory: the lower and sadder he gets while still being functional - i.e. able to carry normal daily tasks - the better his changes of surviving.

-But… why?

-Because of survival instincts. When he will be too sadand demoralized to do anything, he will be forced to do major changes.

-What kind of major changes are you talking about? What is the problem exactly?

-Frank is in the darkness right now. He cannot tell what is right or wrong. In that situation, he reprensents a danger to himself as well as others.

-And to us as well. If he dies, we die with him, correct?

-Correct. But death isn’t the worst that could happen to us. I’d rather die than become what I have seen deep within his soul.

-And what did you see?

-That matter is a security one issue. You only have clearance level 7.

-It’s that bad?

-Yes. Evil in its pure form. Massive destructive energy. His huge capabilities and skills used in a purely evil manner. Naturely, you understood I would rather kill him than go there. I will call the white corp to clear ever one of us if I have to.

-You would really do that?

-I hope I don’t have to. Frank is definitively a good guy. But he has done his mistakes and he has to pay for them.

-What EXACTLY is wrong with him?

-Oh, it’s a small issue. A problem always start with the smallest issue. It is only when it is ignored that it become progressively worse. For example, could you believe a single virus, if ignored, can grow and potentially kill someone? As for Frank, he has huge problems managing his stress and properly reacting to events. He also lacks the human relation skills needed to achieve his dreams. But these are minor issues. The main problem with Frank is that he understood the world is nothing but a giant hoax.

-Explain.

-You see, all his life Frank worked very hard. He had the best grades in elementary and high school. All his life, he worked very hard and hoped for the best. Now, he realized he might finish his life printing white sheets and being bored to death.

-THAT’S the problem?

-It’s the begining of it. Frank understood everything everyone told him so far was nothing but a great lie. That completely shut down his motivation and productivity. Frank, in simple words, suffer from an extreme lack of motivation and interest. He is so unproductive he risks losing everything.

-That’s so bad?

-Absolutely. Frank is definitively very angry too. He is still angry at that firm for making him waste his summer. He is pissed at the society for teaching him so many lies and making him work so hard for nothing.

-And that is why he might turn… evil?

-Yes. But I doubt he’ll go there. Frank is fundamentally a very good person. He now lives in a world of lies and deception, following  false beliefs and walking on the wrong path.

-And there is nothing we can do?

-He has to find the truth himself. As I said, Frank is in the darkness now. And he has to find the way out himself. Or die trying. Frank is 20. His life is fundamentally changing and he will need a firm grasps of his fundamental values to suceed. Everything he has learnt in his life is now in jeopardy.

-Do you think he will make it?

-I estimate there is a 5% chance he fails and die.

-Ah, his odds are quite good.

-Not really. He has a 80% chance of hiding and denying the problem like the very vast majority of people in this world.

-What? What do you mean?

-Cowardice. Changing and fixing issues as fundamental as this one is far from easy. It’s so hard in fact that most people choose never to face them, just “ignoring” the issues with the first bogus solution, usually drugs or alcohol. Like so many people with interior battles, Frank could choose to hide the problem by drinking. Alcohol is a wonderful solution — at least in apparence — to that “problem”. It stops the communications and the interior fight. It makes him unable to think, unable to feel this battle and for a while, stops it. Naturally it does not fix anything, it just hides the symptoms.

-You mean alcohol hide his problems instead of solving it?

-Exactly. By drinking, he is able to run away from a problem without actually solving it. That is why alcohol is so popular. Lots of people drink to forget their problemsm typically because they lack the skills, tools or motivation to face their own challenges. Alcohol is actually a very good way to run away, and one we can’t do anything against.

-How so?

-Because Frank has a free will. There is nothing we can do to prevent him from drinking away his problems if that’s what he wants.

-But that won’t solve the problem, right?

-No.

-What will happen?

-If he does that? He’ll become another pawn in the system, going around in his life without any goal in mind. He’ll become another zombie without any reason to live, another sad soul in this lost, cold world. He’ll be in a state of perpetual apathy, unable to get out, until his very last breath. He will waste his entire life and his past efforts and become yet another shadow, a living dead.

-Wow, this is serious.

-Do you start to understand why this fight is so important? This is one fight Frank cannot afford to lose.

-Yes, I start to get it.

-You’re quite new here. I have been with Frank since the very begining. Yes, I have been there since the first moment. I remember a confident, hard-working, dreaming Frank. Frank dreamt to change the world. Frank wanted to become a writer. Frank wanted to have a family and be able to help the world.

-Isn’t that everyone’s dream?

-Perhaps. Still, Frank had potential, he had everything. Frank is an exceptionally smart man, let’s not deny that. You simply have no idea of his potential, he has a big destiny ahead of him. Sure, some other dreamt of changing the world, but most people give up their dreams when they grow up due to the nature of this world, or simply do not have the ressources to fulfill them — and Frank is not quite ready to become like one of them.

-Explain!

-Alright. In life, you have two choices: you can renounce your dreams and be like everyone else: living a boring, simple life. You can think, act and talk like everyone else, in short, be a copy. Most people choose this option– consciously or not — over the fear of the second.

-And what is the second?

-It’s following your path. Fulfilling your dreams. Keeping your faith in what you believe. Refusing to surrender your individuality to others. That of course implies you will be “different”, in a category that regroups less than 1% of the population. Namely, you will always be alone and suffer of loneliness.

-Can’t a person still follow his or her dreams and hide their intentions to others?

-No. I understand what you mean — putting a “mask” and acting normal, telling others things you don’t really believe in order to gain acceptance while still trying to keep your individuality. That strategy, alas, is doomed to fail.

-Why?

-Because if you do that, first, you are getting friends that do not trully accept you for what you are, so you are wasting time. But most important, you are lying to yourself. If you keep saying something, you will end believing it. If you say for example the opposite of what you think to gain someone’s acceptance, you will eventually believe it.

-That’s not true!

-Yes, it is. We are what we do , what we say. If you keep thinking “I love pop-sicles” when you in fact hate them — you will end up loving them.

-Really.

-Yes. We are that powerful. Humans work by conditioning. You can always become whatever you want or believe whatever you think. It’s basic human psychology.

-So if a person tells himself he can fly day after day, he will eventually end up believing it?

-Well, there is a difference between common sense and taste. You interiorly know you cannot fly, not without planes or helicopters anyway. But some things are less obvious. For example, what do you want to do in your life? Do you like pizza? Do you like this person? All these examples are subject to change through time and that is why they can be manipulated, either by exterior sources such as publicity, for example, or even your own thoughts.

-You know a lot of stuff, boss!

-I have been there since the begining. I have been studying and working hard since the very begining. Working hard - the only way we can ever achieve anything.

-I am taking due note. Do you think we will live old?

-I sincerly believe it. Frank has the tools to get out of his mess and clean out his thoughts. Once it’s done with, and if he makes the right choice, it will last for all his life. Do you start to understand how important this is? He NEEDS to suceed.

-Yes. And we stay there, not helping him, not doing anything…

-Oh, we can’t help him, but we can certainly do something.

-Like?

-See this? It’s called The Flux.

-The Flux?

-Yes. Half of his conscious thoughts are shown here. You can read the words we exchange as he imagines then. See? They go from bottom to top, down to his own mind. He can see, he can hear what we are saying. In fact, he is typing it, word by word, the best he can.

-Wow.

-This is only half of his thoughts, however. The other half is shown on another matrix on which none of us have control.

-The Lefties?

-Yes. Once you worked for the Righties, however, there is no way you will ever work for Lefties. This includes me. You will be forced to live and only see with this section of The Flux, forever. It should be mentionned his unconscious thoughts, the secret part of The Flux, is locked under extremely resistant protection and accessible to no one. That’s right: nobody will ever have access to this part of his thoughts directly. Except under exceptional circumstances, of course. Nothing is invincible, his mind included.

-Where is it?

-In the middle. Duly locked. No one — and I state it very clearly, NO ONE can modify it, and very few can see it directly.

-Why?

-The secret part of The Flux, hisunconscious thoughts are generated by a secret program. No one knows who created or invented this program. It’s a complete mystery. We have absolutely no control over what is done. The reason is simple: these are ALL, but really ALL of his thoughts - his most secret fantasies, his hidden dreams and aspirations, his most secret feelings, his primal fears, the secret parts of his mind, etc. If these thoughts were to be released on the conscious part of his mind, they would spread havoc and chaos on his mind and completely destroy him.

-Why so?

-Because the subconscious is everything. It’s HIM, in a way.

-And it requires a level 1 clearance to see it?

-Touché. Even there, I don’t get to see that part of The Flux often, and not directly. I can only see copies in order to be completely unable to interact on his thoughts real-time.

-So if I understand, if someone was to see that part of his mind, and possible modify it or break the barrier, this would set free hundreds of his most secret fantasies and impulses?

-Exactly. He could explode in anger and start stabbing everyone. Or go around and rape someone. We would have no control over that.

-Has this ever happened?

-For Frank, no. For some people, yes. You can never recover. It completely destroy the way you think and act. This is very very rare and can only happen in one situation, thought.

-Which one?

-When the subsconcious reaches its limits. The limit of what it can tolerate. Everything has his limit and the subconscious is no exception. Then again, the limit is not the same for everyone. I could talk to you for long about Resilience, the system used by the secret part of The Flux to regulate its influx of thougthts, impulses and feelings. The Subconscious only break after a lot of… very difficult challenges.

-Have you ever seen the subconscious?

-No, not directly. That is impossible. As I said, it is possible for highly qualified individuals to see the most secret part of his mind, but not directly. The secret part moves much faster than our section of The Flux. It’s extremely hard to follow. If you ever get the top security rating, you will be allowed to see it sometimes, delayed by a few minute in order to prevent you from ever being ablee to influence what is sent to the Left and Right side of The Flux - in short, in order to prevent any action on his thoughts and mind.

-Okay, so if I understand, what we see in that part of The Flux is a reprentation of the Subconsious?

-Exactly. We only see a reflection, a part of his most inner thoughts. Most of his thoughts are automatically filtred and archived without ever reaching his conscious mind. Even he isn’t aware of the process. Subconscious in itself can almost never be modified directly. If you wanted to fix a problem in the subconscious, through psychoanalysis for example, it would take forever to ever modify or change that section of his mind — then again, you don’t hit the thoughts directly, but rather the way they are handled. You would just prevent the thoughts from being sent to the Righties and Lefties and not stop them completely. Some people train very hard to prevent certain thoughts from reaching their conscious zone because they are unable to resist theirimpulses, but the only thing they can do is prevent the thoughts from reaching their conscious mind, not stop them completely from being generated. The subconscious is the most secure section of his mind. It’s almost impossible to modify it. It’s them, in a way.

-I think I start to get it. So, to go back to our subject, how can we help him? He is in pain.

-Well, we have no control over what the Subconsious, or secret part of The Flux, sends, but we can… well, influence the results.

-How?

-Very simple. We insert words. We take words and throw them in The Flux.

-And?

-And we pray. The words are lost somewhere within his mind. We have no control on how the words are interpreted  or even if they will be.

-And what do we send?

-We send him hints. Short questions to put him on the right track.

-This is the most we can do?

-Unless you count dreams, yes.

-Dreams?

-Dreams are sent by the Subconscious. When thoughts form a coherent mass, they are sent to him during moments of vulnerability, usually sleep. It’s not our duty, however.

-I thought the subconscious was just a program.

-It is. It’s extremely sophisticated, though. It includes a recording of every single second of his life, down to the exact word. It includes all thoughts that were generated and even those that were not. It’s an extremely good system. It will never be beat.

-This is extremely impressive. I didn’t know… This was so complex and big.

-This is bigger than you and me. We aren’t one hundred billions for nothing. I could talk to you of ghost memory and intelligent application for hours.

-Thank you for taking the time to tell me this, boss. I appreciate.

-No problem.

-I hope I have the right to see his subconscious one day. I’m sure it is beautiful.

-Remember one thing: Subconscious has his best, but also his worst feelings. It also contains everything he is trying to hide to himself.

-Like?

-Bad souvenirs, people he would rather forget, mistakes he made. These thoughts are constantly reminded to him– meaning sent to us or the Lefties.

-Why? Isn’t that cruel? Why are we torturing him with that?

-There is a very simple for that. Inner peace pass by a complete understanding and acceptance of your past. You can’t deny something has happened.

-Why?

-Because that would be lying to yourself. What has happened has happened and you have to accept your past and learn from it. You cannot change your past, but you can change your future. Never forget that. Also, Frank needs to learn from his mistakes or he will never progress. Forgetting would not improve hislife. Frank needs to understands his mistake and learn, evolve, from them.

-That’s amazing, but what if he isn’t able to solve the problem? What if the problem is bigger than him? Wouldn’t we be torturring him?

-Then he falls in the 80% or, worse, in the 5%. The very vast majority of people spend their lives trying to forget their pasts. Not necessarly drinking. This could be doing drugs or even trying to have a normal life and trying to forget, again and again, looking for forgiveness from an entity they created themselves. As you guessed, these people are never happy. I refuse to let Frank become like that thought. The world doesn’t need another crappy loser who wasted his talent.

-So in order to live and be happy, Frank needs to evaluate his past, stop living in darkness and go back to funadamental values. He needs to clear his life and re-evalute his principles. He needs to forgive and needs to develop new goals, new objectives and get a new form of motivation.

-That is correct.

-Do you think he will make it?

-I think he will. As I said, he has all the tools to suceed. I wish I could use them for him, but we wouldn’t be doing him a favor.

-Again, thank you very much boss. I have learnt a lot. Frank, this guy, I really, really hope he makes it.

-Me too. Trust me, me too.

-He seems like a good guy. Under crisis, perhaps. Lost, certainly. But he deserves happiness. And he has nice elements to lead him.

-Thank you.

-I’ll be back to my duty. Thanks a lot for this discussion. Perhaps one day, I will get a clearance one level, and that will be thanks to you.

-You’re welcome and thank you for your attention. Oh, one last thing.

-What?

-Never forget that we are all under HIS control, not the opposite. In fact, every single element  here, even single inhabitant and worker, is under his full authority. If he suddenly decides to stop eating, or throw himself in front a bus, we will all die. This is a message to both of you: we are all counting on you. We worked too hard, for 20 years, we worked too hard  to fail now. Don’t give up.