Member-only story
Is Life a Puppet Show?
“We are puppets of our subconscious desires.” — Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Non-members can read here.
The puppet show is a performance art.
Puppets stand for different characters in a story. They perform roles in the narrative.
Puppets are lifeless dolls. They seem like real people speaking to us when they deliver their dialogues.
The puppets are attached to strings pulled by a puppeteer. Their performance is totally controlled by the puppeteer.
Are we similar to the puppets?
We claim to be rational and autonomous beings with the ability to make free choices. In reality, we are rational beings who embrace irrationality when it suits us. Our rationality is bounded, not unconstrained.
We are not puppets but behave a lot like them.
Our free will seems more like a myth than a reality.
We are pulled by not a single puppeteer but a number of them.We dance to the tunes of both visible and invisible masters.
The puppeteers who pull our strings are our hidden feelings, biases, desires, motivations, and incentives.
The subconscious mind is the most powerful, invisible puppeteer. Our access to this inner world is limited.
