You Have to be Careful What Information You Let into Your Mind

Back in the day, I interviewed the late, great, conservative journalist Robert Novak. He really didn’t know who I was, but I met him once at CPAC.

He was walking through the lobby, and I asked him for a picture. He graciously took one with me. I then turned for just a second to motion a female friend over, and said, “Mr. Novak, could you take a picture with my friend, too?” He was already about 20 feet away, moving in the opposite direction. It was unintentionally hilarious, but I understood where he was coming from.

Some people, like the now legendary Andrew Breitbart, would stand in the middle of crowds at CPAC and glory in talking to everyone who came by, but a lot of the other big conservative names basically needed to go through back rooms or have security to get anywhere in a timely manner without getting mobbed. So, running away? It made perfect sense in that situation.

In any case, Novak’s book was called “The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington,” and it was genuinely interesting reading if you care about what politics was like in America before the modern day. He dropped a lot of intriguing facts in that interview, but this section is particularly relevant to the topic at hand:

John Hawkins: Now, obviously, Reagan had a lot to do with tax cuts becoming a conservative staple, but why did the Left move away from tax cuts?

Robert Novak: That’s a very interesting point because when John Kennedy came into office… the economy was in very bad shape. Eisenhower, for 8 years as a Republican president, had refused to cut taxes. We had 3 balanced budgets and 3 recessions during the Eisenhower years. Tax rates were just ruinously high.

(Kennedy) was convinced that to save the economy, he needed to cut taxes. He couldn’t get it through Congress, by the way. It had to wait until after he was assassinated and Johnson got it through Congress, but you still had many conservative Republicans saying, “We can’t cut taxes while the budget is in a deficit.”

You ask why did the Democrats change from that? I think what really changed them was that the whole tax cut proposal was adopted by the Republican Party with the Kemp-Roth Bill in 1978, and then, really, big time, promoted by Reagan. Then, when the Republicans took it over, Democrats just went in the opposite direction.

Notice anything there? Democrats were in favor of cutting taxes. Republicans were against tax cuts while we were running budget deficits. They certainly don’t hold those same positions today. Along similar lines, remember when Democrats were against gay marriage? How about when Republicans would never vote for a candidate who had been divorced, much less one who had fooled around on his wife?

It’s worth noting all of this because we tend to think of both parties as these unchanging monoliths that generally stay the same over time unless they continue to roll on in the same direction they were moving, like a car with no brakes. Similarly, we human beings have this tendency to believe that we really don’t change that much, that we’re not all that susceptible to outside influences, and that the principles and values we live by are carved in stone, like the 10 Commandments.

Meanwhile, NONE OF THIS is even remotely true.

All of us can change quite a bit, sometimes quickly, but far more over time than we realize. That change can be for the worse, for the better, or it can just be different.

So, why do we change over time?

Because we have different experiences, get into different situations, and most importantly, have different inputs into our brains. In fact, it’s those differing ways of looking at the world that we’re exposed to that shape how we view the experiences and situations that happen to us in the first place.

Additionally, what we hear all the time becomes normalized to us.

This is why sayings like “Birds of a feather flock together” and “Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas” became popular.

However, this doesn’t just apply to your friend groups; it applies to the content you consume.

Most of us believe we can marinate in the most disgusting, vile, and weird information streams on the planet, and it won’t impact our thinking.

Does that really make sense?

For example, do you really believe these successful companies are spending this much money to influence people if it doesn’t work?

Where people get confused is that they look at a list like this and they go, “I’m a guy. I’ve never bought Estee Lauder. What the hell is Tencent Holdings? I don’t even like Disney! This stuff doesn’t work on me!” Then, they don’t even notice when they hear a McDonald’s ad on the radio and get a Big Mac and fries that day for lunch, or spend a lot more for some Nike shoes over some no-name shoe brand.

Next thing you know, they’re a diehard fan of Nestle chocolate or will only drive Toyotas, but if you ask them, the advertising had nothing to do with it. They just love Nestle chocolate, and Toyota makes a great car, so why wouldn’t they drive it?

A lot of things in life work like this.

If you’re comparing a church and Reddit, the Daily Wire and the Nick Fuentes podcast, or a trans group to a self-help book, you’re going to be pummeled with very different ideas and values, some of which are probably going to stick in your brain over time.

In fact, with enough exposure, these ideas can become like a vaccine, inoculating people against different ideas, both good and bad.

Liberals may be practically incapable of hearing conservative ideas, fitness junkies aren’t going to be tempted by a Baskin-Robbins commercial, and a Mormon virgin who has been convinced sex is a grave sin isn’t going to seriously consider “going all the way” with her boyfriend at the prom.

In many cases, this influence practically works on a subconscious level. You may not even realize that your mind has changed or that your feelings about something have shifted until your behavior or attitude changes.

You’re in the gym and find yourself pushing hard because you absorbed the idea that extra intensity helps build muscles. If your friends at school are crapping on straight white girls and you’re a white girl, you may blurt out that you’re not straight, you’re “gender questioning,” which sounds better to them than saying you’re a straight, white girl, but essentially doesn’t mean anything. If you get turned down enough times by women and become convinced you’re not attractive, the next time some woman is flirting with you, you may assume she’s just being “nice” and not bother to ask her out.

So, how do you “fix” this? Well, in one sense, you don’t.

No matter how hard you try, you are going to be influenced by the information that gets fed into your brain. You don’t have a choice about that.

What you do have a choice about is what you allow into your brain.

How about positive information? Information that helps you learn skills, get smarter, and become better? What about information based on principles that have been proven to work or that are provided by successful people?

None of us gets universally good and positive data fed into our brains, but that just means that we need to be much more intentional about what we deliberately allow into our minds.

So, what kind of information are we talking about here?

Church. History. How-tos. Rich and successful people explaining how they succeeded. Skill building. Classes. Motivational speeches. Christian and classical music. Biographies of successful people. Cutting-edge podcasts. Science. Culturcidal (ahem). Coaching.

Again, we’re not talking about being perfect here. Nobody is perfect, but don’t underestimate how much what you choose to feed into your mind matters. It can make your life happy or sad, successful or miserable, and take you where you want to go or lead you into a dead end.

Choose wisely.

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