Welcome to the 4th installment of 1984: A Dystopian Bedtime Story, where I read Part 1, Chapter 4 of George Orwell's Nineteen-Eight-Four for your listening pleasure.

Last week's reading taught us a bit about Winston's beginnings, and his vague memories of his family of origin. If you haven't caught up on that episode yet, please find it here.

You can find this latest recording on both my YouTube and Rumble Peachy Books channels, or click on the corresponding embedded links below.

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Below is a post I shared with my social media followers on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram this past week, in preparation of publishing this read aloud.

On the one hand, is being apathetic a deliberate coping strategy used to prevent heartache, or on the other, might apathy be instilled within a population via mind control, for ease of management, by its rulers?

Could it be the demoralisation of a populace that causes these changes in how humanity relates with one another, engendering the human mind to choose this insulating path of numbness for preservation?

When we no longer place value in our privacy, maintaining friendships, or loving others, does this rid us of the need for loyalty, compassion, and bravery?

I'm seeing this playing out right before my eyes in modern society. Polarisation in our communities has reached a rolling boil these last three years but has been lightly simmering for over a decade.

Although only some of us are passionate enough to fight for our beliefs, fewer still are willing to have good-faith discussions about how to get along. For the majority, it's easier to disconnect, not care, and go one's own way.

With tyrannical social passports, two-tiered access to public spaces, and the refusal to recognise countering channels of data as of late, many of us have experienced a loss of engagement within our immediate families, with no interest in mending broken ties.

Last week's reading of Part 1, Chapter 3 of Nineteen-Eighty-Four by George Orwell saw Winston ruminating on the relational losses faced by Oceanians and how it was ancient times that offered the comfort of innate intimacy and connection.

I shall heed this as another of Orwell's important warnings, will you?

What is the biggest caution you took away from Orwell's many messages throughout Nineteen-Eighty-Four?