Brave New You
Conditioning, Freedom, Individual, Culture, Faith, How to Uninstall Programs
I.
Conditioning
Source
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, future children are born and raised in state-controlled Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres where they are destined to Neo-Pavlovian conditioning, hypnopædic programming, and emotional engineering tailored to their predestined social class. Higher classes—Alphas and Betas—are conditioned to prioritize pleasure and avoid pain, while lower classes—Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons—are conditioned to slave away in Fordist factories and fear things like nature and books, which might interfere with their assigned roles.
While we do not inhabit Huxley’s dystopia, we do share something in common with its meticulously conditioned citizens: we too are susceptible to conditioning.
That begs the question: Are we?
According to Toltec wisdom shared by Don Miguel Ruiz, “The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually being planted. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts… we become a copy of Mamma’s beliefs, Daddy’s beliefs, society’s beliefs, and religion’s beliefs.” The patterns and beliefs repeated around us take root in our minds and become our programming, for better or for worse. Over time, these learned behaviors obscure our intuition (i.e., our “inner tutor”)—which is our natural, unconditioned modus operandi.
The more we cultivate the seeds of culture, the more difficult it becomes to break free. We become attached to our conditioning; addicted to the programs running our lives. And instead of uninstalling outdated or harmful programs, we pile on more. Atomic Habits, Think and Grow Rich, The 10X Rule—New Programs, Better Programs, 10X Programs! Eventually, the cycle becomes self-sustaining; we internalize the role of our own domesticator, reinforcing the very conditioning we wish to escape.
II.
Freedom
“What would it be like if I could, if I were free—not enslaved by my conditioning?”
“But, Bernard, you’re saying the most awful things.”
“Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
In the dystopian novel, people are well aware of their conditioning. After all, conditioning is viewed as essential for the greater good of society—for Community, Identity, and Stability. Brave New People are taught how to think and what to think. They don’t know what it’s like to be unconditioned, and the thought of doing life without automatic programs is the stuff of nightmares. Having to think for oneself is the stuff of nightmares.
In another dystopian novel, George Orwell writes, “Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” Orthodoxy is conformity, conditioning. It’s blindly accepting the conventional narrative without question, surrendering intuition to the safety of groupthink.
Yet, the only freedom that matters in life is the freedom to think our own thoughts. Our minds are all we really have, and they are all we have to offer others. They differentiate us and define us as individuals, not our race or age or gender or nationality or occupation or disability status or whatever. Without our minds, without organic thought, we’re just another Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. We’re just another casualty, conditioned to an unconscious caste.
III.
Individual
We are all given individual tasks, individual journeys in life. According to Carl Jung, “Finding the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else.” But finding meaning requires courage to step into the unknown. Thinking for oneself is scary indeed.
“If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely,” John says to Bernard in Brave New World. Because our minds are what differentiate us from one another, holding a different perspective comes with the risk of ostracization. Thinking different means being different. That’s the cost of true freedom.
One of humanity’s greatest fears is the fear of rejection. Men and women will go to great lengths to be accepted, loved, included. They’ll ignore their own intuition and adopt the opinions, ideas, and concepts of others, even if it results in inner warfare. Self-doubt, self-hatred, self-abuse… all for other-approval. But what about the Self?
Most people tragically confuse aloneness with loneliness, but they are entirely different. Aloneness is enjoying the company of one’s Self while loneliness is longing for others’ company. It’s been said that George Bernard Shaw once attended a cocktail party filled with shallow chatter and meaningless exchanges—we all know the kind. When asked if he was enjoying himself, Shaw replied, “It’s the only thing I’m enjoying here.” That’s the beauty of aloneness: being so self-assured that your own company is enough.
Ironically, most cocktail partygoers attend endless events and social gatherings not out of a love for connection, but to avoid being with themselves. They say they fear loneliness, but they actually fear aloneness. They fear facing their own self-disapproval.
IV.
Culture
Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much of it if you sit still and read books.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Culture is societal conditioning—programming designed for community adoption; a uniform way of thinking and feeling about the world. To fit into the culture and be part of the mold, one must shed their individual beliefs and align with the collective consciousness.
When I ask Claude what “culture” is, it responds:
Culture is a complex system of shared understandings, behaviors, customs, knowledge, and values that shape how groups of humans interact with each other and interpret their world.
And when I ask it to share some trends in culture, it responds1:
Digital Evolution:
Growing anxiety about AI
“De-influencing” movement
Shift toward digital minimalism
Social Patterns:
Growing interest in solitude
Rise of micro-communities
Increased focus on mental health
Entertainment:
Nostalgia-driven content
Interactive entertainment
Short-form video dominance
Lifestyle:
Climate anxiety influencing choices
Rise of “third spaces”
Digital nomad and remote work culture
Identity & Society:
Fluid approach to gender expression
Multi-hyphenate careers
Changing definitions of success
Growing anxiety, movements, shifts, interests, increased focus, entertainment (i.e., distraction), influences, rises, approaches, expression, changing definitions. This is how the collective thinks and feels about things these days. This is how you should think and feel about things, too.
But how did the culture come to be the way that it is? Why is there a heightened focus on mental health, climate anxiety, or gender fluidity? The answer lies in ideologies. Ideologies are “idea programs” that shape how we think about something. When you subscribe to an ideology—be it liberalism, conservatism, populism, capitalism, socialism, feminism, nationalism, transhumanism, secularism, or any other “ism”—your perception is filtered through its lens. Instead of seeing reality for what it is, your thoughts and opinions are shaped by the idea program.
V.
Faith
I used to believe that unhealthy patterns stemmed, at least in part, from a lack of faith. But I now realize that this is untrue. All people have faith, but the real question is: Faith in what?
When we think of the word “faith,” we often think of Faith in Good, or Faith in God. This is the kind of faith that can help us awaken to our intuition and rid ourselves of harmful programs. When the prevailing faith is Faith in Good, we think more good thoughts and feel more good feelings. And we become less likely to adopt ideologies or beliefs that conflict with our Faith in Good.
But the other kind of faith is Faith in Evil, also known as fear. Fear is not the absence of faith; it’s redirected faith. It’s placing one’s faith in evil rather than good. When the prevailing faith is Faith in Evil, we think more anxious thoughts and feel more helpless. When we live in fear, we are especially susceptible to all sorts of conditioning. We install new programs to distract us from the way we feel inside. And the more programs we install, the less autonomy we have, and the harder it becomes to access our intuition. You will not listen to your inner tutor if you are afraid of it.
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