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There's a shirt that says "Think: It's not illegal yet."

That makes me wonder, for some odd reason. Why would thinking be illegal?

What harm can thinking do? Descartes did some thinking, and do you know what he came up with? "I think, therefore I am." I love that phrase. Not because of what elementary school teachers do to it ("I _____, therefore I am." wink but because of what Descartes meant by it. How do we know something is real? Like this computer sitting in front of me as I type. How do I know it's real? I can touch it, feeling the warmth of the circuits humming. But how do I know I'm actually touching it? I could be hallucinating. Same goes for sight and sound. It could all be in my head. And that's exactly what makes it real to me. I think about it, I interact with it, I believe that it's there. The concept of this computer is in my brain. And through this, the computer exists for me. That, of course, raises the question: How do I know that I exist? Well, I think, don't I? The concept of me is in my thoughts. My thoughts prove my existence to myself. Therefore, as long as I think, I exist.

How could something that proves my very existence be dangerous? It proves the existence of my best friend, it proves the existence of my mother. But it also can prove the existence of the likes of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

And since thinking is not illegal, people like Stalin were allowed to think. And they thought and thought and thought. Their minds dreamt up whole worlds, horribly twisted and disfigured worlds, but whole worlds nonetheless.

But where does that leave you and me? We're not thinking up ways of genocide (hopefully), so why is this a problem?

Let's take a look at me, shall we? What do I think about? Well, I think about school, my friends, my boyfriend, my writing, my artwork, myself.... Like most people, I have a variety of thoughts. But lately, my thoughts are all muddled and huddled around one twisted thought: food. How do most people deal with the thought of food? Probably as tasty, or something they eat to stay alive, or something they cook up every night for their families. But my mind.... it doesn't take it like that. My mind glares at the thought and reaches out to strangle it. It hisses the calories and the fat that it has, how it will all go to my hips and ruin my hopes for a perfect body. And I retreat into my mind and surround myself with these thoughts, these ammunitions and I tear down what I know as food in my head. And as the thought of food dies, so does my perceived reality of it. And my reality warps just as my mind warps the way I think and feel until I am sickly and thin and beautiful in my distorted eyes.

And what about you? No, you don't necessarily hate food. You could love it for all I know. But all humans have innate tendencies, and violence is one of them. Imagine you walk down the street and you run into someone you hate. Not someone you dislike; someone you despise with your whole heart. And imagine that they're with their hideous/stupid/annoying cronies and you overhear their bland/snide/neanderthal-like conversation. And in their conversation, they are talking about you. No, not just talking. Gossiping/trash-talking/bashing/lying/spreading rumors about you. They're saying all these awful things about you, and it makes you angry. Scratch that, you're furious. You want them to drop dead on the spot, you're so angry. In fact, in your mind, you are imagining their untimely demise. You can see the way their faces will distort in agony and fear as the life rips itself from their bodies. And in your mind, you've killed them. So what's to stop you from doing it? Just a few laws which really mean nothing. What's time in a bland room to you? It's just another spot to exist in, to think in. Because your mind conceived that beautiful plan, and even if you never act on it, those people have been murdered in your mind.

So what does thinking get us? Anger, eating disorders, depression, suicide, murder, genocide.... the list is endless.

"Think: It's not illegal..... yet."