My name's Teresa Nguyen. I chose my favorite book, Brave New World. I based it on 1) I've read it more than any other book, and 2) I really like dystopian future societies. I feel like it's actually very similar to potentially what might be going on today.
For example I love 1984, but in it everyone is very aware of their oppression; whereas in Brave New World no one is aware but a few, and that to me is scarier than everyone being aware.
I feel like how they are desensitizing children at a young age in the book is happening today. People are distracting themselves with feeling good instead of dealing with, maybe, the realities of things, and I feel like that is very harmful for the human psyche. We need to go through being sad and happy and all these human emotions to really enjoy life.
I think it's important because it's a reminder of being artificially happy is not as great as maybe being a little sad here and there, but being able to work out your feelings and take what you do have with more gratitude. They're all content with their oblivious life and there's not any real relationships anymore in the future which I think is important for human interaction.
Is it better to be happy or better to have freedom?