When in a classroom or some other form of instructional setting, when someone else is talking for an extensive period of time and I am expected to sit and listen, I often tune out absolutely everything going on around me. Of course this happens completely by accident. I am fully aware that it is in my best interest to give my complete and undivided attention to whomever is providing me with possible important information to apply to my life and I should store it away forever, but there is only so long that a person can keep their grasp on my attention before my mind begins to wander. I would like to say that on occasions like these, that I have spent my time wisely and in deep reflection on ways to better my life or, at the very least, thought up something useful. However, more often than not, that is not the case. I am sad to say those times are frequented by attempting to make the last thing I heard into a pun, pondering why the first book of Harry Potter is called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone" in the UK and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in America, or sometimes my mind is completely blank and there is not a thing going on up there.
In one particularly boring lesson from Dr. Smith over Social Work Policy, I just happened to find myself in one of those moments, as I did almost absolutely every single day in his class. In this particular moment though, I was not thinking of the usual nonsense. This was a whole other level of ridiculousness. I was going to reattempt to communicate with the person directly to my left, using nothing but my mind. Granted it had been a long time since I last tried telepathy, and in all of my previous attempts I had never been successful, but I had this overwhelming feeling that today was the day and that I was going to finally accomplish making that mental connection with somebody.
I prepped my mind by clearing it of all the other pointless jargon that was currently present, because nothing else was as important as what was taking place. If all went according to plan, I would be making history in that moment. I was going to accomplish this for science. Clearly, the only reason nobody has ever succeeded before is because they lacked the ability to channel all of their self determination. I transmitted with as much willpower as I could muster, “Hey! Melissa, face me if you can hear me!” There was a long pause and disappointingly nothing happened. Perhaps Melissa was too thick to receive and understand a mental message. Maybe it was sent, it just was not a clear enough transmission or her brain stored it in the junk mail folder. To be fair to Melissa, I think it was the latter. I then proceeded to think of myself as throwing each individual word over and over again at the side of her head, “look at me!” Disappointingly, there was no reply.
In talking with friends, this is not completely an uncommon experience. Perhaps something that extensive is unusual, but typically some sort of attempt is made. I could say roughly 75% of all students have at least done a halfway run at telepathy, but I did not actually put forth the time for that type of research to accurately make such claims. Although, despite my sample size being relatively small and consisting of like minded individuals, the percentage was significant enough to make me feel comfortable in saying that I in fact am not alone in this. If this is not an experience that anyone else has had, other than the few people that I discussed this with, then I apologize for making such ridiculous claims. I also would like to reduce my claim of a shared human experience to simply looking at someone, wishing that you knew what they were thinking, and trying to guess it.
Since I like to overthink things, that somewhat shared experience begs the question why do so many people try something that they inherently know as impossible? Is it simply that people crave the supernatural or does it go deeper than that? Most people do tend to think about having the ability to fly, being able to shape-shift, or having incredible human strength. I have to admit that it not only would be handy to have the ability to teleport or manipulate the world around me, but also extremely cool. So of course wanting to have the ability to pull a Charles Xavier because it would be neat is undeniable. But as my foreshadowing question suggests, I am also proposing another underlying reason.
At risk of sounding incredibly lame and cliche, a cause may come from our desire to find a connection with all other human beings. That may sound like a reach, but hear me out. People are always trying to make connections with other people. They want to be able to find things about another that they personally identify with. People flock to each other over these similarities. Even when there is no connection of real depth or importance to be found, they will find one and try to force it. For instance, I have a very common first name. When I introduce myself people like to point out that they have a brother with the name Jacob too, even though there is absolutely nothing that I can actually do with that information. It is a subconscious ploy to make a connection, despite the fact that I have nothing else in common with their brother other than my name and gender. Even this article itself is a poor attempt to reach out to people that this might possibly resonate with, and based on their response I will determine my own self-worth.
In a similar fashion, this is something that we try to accomplish with telepathy. That connection would almost be like having a conversation with a person except for on a deeper and more personal level. Conversations rarely go deeper than answering, “Oh, I’m fine.” to the question, “How are you doing today?” When in actuality that person feels dead inside as the world around them is crumbling. A mind cannot put on a brave face and smile while biting back tears. Instead there would be an ability to see past all the walls that people put up and look at the pathetic whimpering child that is underneath the falsehood.
Obviously, I do not want to leave someone thinking that the message behind all of this is to tear down their walls, become vulnerable to the world and others will follow suit, and then they will finally be able to make those connections that they long for. The point I am trying to get across is not for people to shed their cocoons, spread their wings, and fly. The harsh truth is that the world will not treat them like butterflies, they will be treated as moths, the butterfly’s ugly cousin. There is a reason that we cannot read each other’s minds. People are weird, perverse, and sometimes just plain stupid, and we need that privacy to hide that from the rest of the world. There are things that we need to keep buried and there are things we are not meant to see. We are not meant to connect with absolutely everyone on the planet, so we should not try to force it. On the other hand, I also do not want everyone to buy into my cynicism about absolutely everything and everyone. So I hope no one takes from this that they should be so heavily guarded. Instead there should be a happy medium. By being open to others they in turn will also be open, but we should be selective about it. In order to fulfill that hole, a select few, a friend group, or just one other person will do the trick.
