1984 by George Orwell

This was one of those "So this is where that comes from!" books.  Such stuff I have always heard referred to like "Big Brother" and "Thought Police" that I pretty much knew what it meant, now has reason. 

I found the book to thought provoking and fascinating.  It was dark, though, and I can't say that I enjoyed reading it.  However, I do appreciate how fantastic it is that Orwell could write something in 1949 with elements of technology and even ideology that exist today.

I think what I like the most about the book was the idea about reality.  Much of what we perceive as reality is determined by our own perspective.  So, in part, when we control our perspective we control reality. 

One of the main elements in the book that is shown to be necessary to eliminate the will of man is to eliminate a belief in God.  I think that is because when we have a strong belief in God we are willing to always have in mind that God has a perfect perspective, and while things are unclear to us, they are always clear to Him.  So those that truly want to exercise full power over others only need to replace God with themselves in the lives of those they wish to control. 

This made me think of how much time we dedicate to meaningless things.  I think you could safely refer to them as Idols.  All of which are carefully crafted to influence our perspective and thus control our reality.

In summary, this is a dark book that makes you paranoid.  I liked it.  I think...