Broken World.

Someone once told me that a true judge of someone's character would be their hidden thoughts. That's right - those deep, dark secrets that you would rather die than let other people know about.

Now imagine a world in which everyone could hear everyone's thoughts. All thoughts - thoughts ranging from how nice the weather is today, to what you should cook for dinner tonight, to how much someone can't stand your colleague's fake smile, to how much you would love to throw a brick at a certain someone's face, and watch them slowly bleed to death in the middle of the road. Imagine, all these thoughts - revealed to the world. Life would be chaos.

Life would be chaos partly because there would be no peace. Quite frankly, I don't care what every single Melburnian I pass on the street plans to cook for dinner. I am more interested in what I think of the weather than what Joe Blog does. Of course, life would also be chaos because everyone else would know about everyone else's plan to rob a bank and cheat on their wife.

Now imagine this. Imagine a world in which everyone is conditioned to act on their thoughts. That's right - every, single one. Forget responsibilities, forget morals, forget doing the right thing - whatever you think of doing, whatever you feel like doing, you do it.

Someone once told me that if they could do one thing that no one else would find out about, they would go to the bank and redistribute all the money to the poor. Yes, kind people still exist in the world (although they might not be particularly realistic in terms of how this sort of action would disrupt society on all fronts).

However, on the whole, I believe there would be a lot more betrayal in the world. A lot more lies. A lot more physical violence. A lot more killing. A lot more broken people.

I guess it is a good thing that people keep most thoughts to themselves. I guess it is a good thing that people are, in general, conditioned to exercise some form of self-control.

But that doesn't mean the thoughts aren't there. That doesn't mean the desire to act isn't there. That doesn't mean that sometimes, just sometimes, you lose self-control.

After all, we live in a broken world.