Once Upon a Time in My Oceania

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” One of the most brilliant minds ever to share his thoughts, George Orwell, wrote that. It’s a thought that greatly resonates with me. I have had many secrets, hiding them from myself. It’s not presumptuous to say it was something of a habit to me, a process memorized and instilled in my psyche since birth. Not the act of lying necessarily. But the ability to tune out every ounce of information that threatens your Utopia, or rather, Oceania? Yes. Later, I’ve learned this is more to do with a little two-word definition of cognitive dissonance, which when faced with new evidence, a person feels mental discomfort over conflicting beliefs, ideas or values. You could say that discomfort is something I have felt many, many times over. Throughout this blog, I would like to explore that with those of you who are willing participants in reading my own thoughts.                  So, why the title? The great novel, 1984, is