EXCERPT -- The Worker, Alone!

 Toys of the Mind

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 30, 2015

Note:

My international readers, reading the last segment on this subject, wondered if I had any more to say on the subject in this book.  Alas, not much more as this is not the focus of this offering. 

That said what is positive about these “Toys of the Mind” associated with computers is that people who otherwise would not be reading are, indeed, reading and being forced to express themselves in words.  Out of this will likely come a new kind of literature. 

EXCERPT – The Worker, Alone!  Going Against the Grain

“Toys of the Mind” are all inventions of thought and therefore flawed. Even so, some treat them as absolute truths, when there are no such things. There are no absolute truths, only a welter of contradictory truths embodied in the worker’s imaginary self. This imaginary self is likely to form his “character.” And character is but a mixed bag of relative truths which each worker may call his own.

These psychic toys are proliferating at an alarming rate. Still, they are seldom essential, more apt to be vain accumulations of gibberish and nonsense, the potpourri of a society reluctant to let loose of its past and face its present.

These toys are made by man’s mind, by man’s thought. This doesn’t make them any less real, but it does make them less sacrosanct.  They are now increasingly in the way. But workers have yet to develop a sense of humor about their toys, especially when they are no longer appropriate.

“Toys of the Mind” have their purpose, and that purpose is mostly as distraction.  When workers are absorbed in toys, like a child, they are extraordinarily quiet and obedient to the demands of these toys.

These toys may be concepts, special interests, or “things.” They could just as well be smartphones, cell phones, laptops, computers, technologies, automobiles, boats, houses, planes, athletics, hobbies, the worker’s own persona or profession.

Stated another way, when legitimate tools or recreational diversions become obsessional, they cease being instrumental and become terminal as toys of escape from reality. Wealth or ambition are also but toys of the mind when they are viewed exclusively in a miser’s sense, and not in an other-directed sense, in what they can do for others.

The list is endless, but the results are always the same. The toys absorb and distract the worker from the chaos of “what is,” to the appeasing pleasure of selective self-forgetting. 

With effective distraction, there is the absence of self. There is no need to think, experience, problem solve or learn. For the moment, the worker is totally controllable. He differs little with the greyhound at the race track who chases the mechanical rabbit, or the rodent who wanders through the maze for the promised piece of cheese. The Holy Grail of this anxious age is the perfect toy to seduce the worker’s restless spirit into compliant behavior.

Should the reader think this is a recent challenge, Roman philosopher Seneca (4 B.C. - 65 A.D.) observed: “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” That is not likely with the constant subliminal bombardment of distractions.