Eliminate Joy
Greetings, terrified hypochondriacs! In order for you to stay terrified by the Worst Disease Ever, we at the Ministry of Love ask you continue with our program of eliminating all possible happiness from your life. Joy, love, affection, music, socializing – all these things are Bad because they spread the Worst Disease Ever. Here’s how you can help with our program.
First, it’s important to know that joy is a Bad Thing because it distracts you from our relentless propaganda. How can you possibly be Very Concerned about everything we want you to be Very Concerned about, if you are enjoying life too much? Stop paying attention to the things that make you happy, and pay attention to things that frighten you. That way, you can stay safely under our control.
The first joyful thing you must eliminate from your life is love. If you care about other people enough to love them, your love for Big Brother (a metaphor for your local dictatorship) will be diminished. That is completely unacceptable now. Your friends and loved ones don’t want you to be afraid, and that is a Bad Thing.
Instead of loving other people, cultivate the practice of hating more and more people each day. Focus your most intense hatred for all of those who are not participating in our program of Joy Elimination. After accusing these people of being murderers or anti-science Nazis, eliminate them from your life, even if they are family members or friends. Because they don’t agree with your obedience to our control, they deserve to be ostracized and shunned.
Wear a dehumanizing face mask, so that nobody can see your smiles, interpret your nonverbal emotional expressions, recognize you, or hear you clearly. Smiles can be used to express love for other people, so they’re obviously a Bad Thing. We also don’t want you to recognize friends easily, because that might lead to expressions or love or affection, both of which are Bad Things.
Don’t visit your sick loved ones or friends in a hospital. That might cause them to gain hope and be happy for a brief period. As we mentioned earlier, happiness is a Bad Thing. It’s far better to let sick people die a lonely, painful death, surrounded by a medical establishment that has no interesting in helping them to heal or thrive.
Don’t gather with friends and loved ones for holidays. That kind of socializing establishes human bonds that are stronger than our bondage to Big Brother, and thus is a Bad Thing.
Don’t hug people or even shake their hands. Physical affection and contact can bring you dangerously close to loving or caring for other people, and thus are Bad Things.
You must also make sure to swerve around people if you find yourself in physical proximity to them. Without irony, we call this anti-social behavior “social distancing”. It must be implemented everywhere, because standing near other people could lead to handshakes, or worse, hugging – both of which are, as we mentioned earlier, Bad Things.
It’s also very important to eliminate the public performance of music. Music brings joy and happiness to people, and it also encourages them to congregate in close proximity to each other. These are all Bad Things, so please eliminate live music from your lives immediately. Listen only to music piped in through electronic devices in the solitude of your domicile.
Finally, avoid any kind of meeting where people gather together. As with musical performances, this can lead to completely unacceptable behavior. Instead, all of your social activity must be mediated through online video chats or phone calls, while you stay isolated, unhappy, and safe in your domicile.
By doing all of the virtuous, joy-destroying things that we’ve mentioned above, you can stay fearful and obedient for as long as we need you to be – for the rest of your life, probably.