21. If you had the gift of telepathy, the ability to read other peoples’ minds, would you use this gift or not? Explain.
If I could read other people’s minds, I swear, I would want to be the richest teenager alive in the world, instead of Justin Bieber. That was my first reaction to this question, and then my opinion changed after thinking about it. I love being acknowledged for something I achieved, most people do. But if I become rich and famous with the help of telepathy, then I didn’t really earn it. I will most probably try to burry this thought that it wasn’t me who achieved all this, way back in my head, away from my conscience. But, the day this thought is brought back to life, I am sure I won’t be able to handle all the guilt it will bring back with it.
Even though the gift of telepathy is so great, I do not think I would use it. Right now you may be thinking that I’m pretending to be a good girl, who never breaks rules, and is just trying to impress you to get into college. I wouldn’t blame you if you think so and you have all the reason to believe it too, however, if this is what you believe you are very wrong. I am no perfect straight A student and I enjoy the thrill of breaking rules once in a while. Although the rules I break are very minor, it still shows that I am not a perfect person.
Yes if I had the gift of telepathy I would be so tempted to cheat during tests and exams. Everyone fantasizes about this at least once in their lifetime. However I also know that most of them don’t feel fully satisfied even if they get a perfect score on the test or the exam. This is because they know it wasn’t their brain that was used, it was someone else’s. This feeling makes you feel small and useless. I would use telepathy for other reasons though. If I can prevent a bomb blast by reading someone’s mind, I would use the gift of telepathy. Like Machiavelli said, “the ends justify the means”(Ms.Seefeldt’s European History class notes on The Renaissance, 9 August 2011).
Reading other peoples minds is invading their privacy and that is something of great importance to me. Everyone has their deep dark secrets, and reading their mind is morally wrong. I would never want anyone to know my secrets. I have secrets that no soul in the world knows, except me, and I would like to keep it that way. I also don’t want to know something someone is keeping from me. I would prefer hearing what they have to say, when they are ready to tell me themselves. To me, reading other peoples’ minds without their consent is exploitation of human rights, and this action is equivalent to exploiting any other right that humans have, such as rights to property.
Besides the fact that reading and taking advantage of the gift of telepathy is morally wrong, you will have a miserable life, because you know the truth, and there is nothing you can do to hide from it. Therefore I would rather do it the right way, instead of taking a shortcut to happiness, because there is no such thing like that. As one of my close friends said, “Happiness comes from within you.”
