The Undenieable "I"

After pretty much finishing this book i thought of something very interesting. I think that D-503 had the capability of change and grow a soul all along. What got me most interested in this was the number of "I"s used. This peaked my interest because of the other literature mentioned in the book: Daily Odes to the Benefactor, Red Flowers of Court Sentences, and Stanzas in Sexual Hygiene. None of those books seem to have any reference to the personal feelings or doings of their authors. D-503's journal has almost all to do with that, which I didn't really notice until about the twelfth entry; it starts with " I have the constant feeling: I will recover, I can recover." After reading this I decided to go back through all the entries and just look for "I"s. In a society like the One State there should be no "I." D-503 makes a similar comment when he speaks of O wanting a baby of her own, or having D be hers. "My" and "mine" don't exist in the One State so why should "I." Here I think back to the borg who had a similar society. Once a being was assimilated it lost its lone identity and became one of them. In the Star Trek movie they are defeated when the assimilated remember their lone identities and fight back. D-503 has his lone identity from the very beginning. The very first words of the book are "I shall simply copy,...". He does not say "here are the words from this book" or " our beliefs lie in this" or even " the great benefactor has taught us"; D-503 introduces himself as a lone identity, an important identity. This should show us that from the very beginning D-503 is different from the rest of the "normal society" and that he has something or is capable of something that others are not. The run in with I-330 didn't cause D-503 to grow his soul or question his society, it just sped up the process. Left by himself D-503 would have started questioning things, eventually, but maybe in a bit of a different way. but that is just what i think.

Thoughts On Imagination, Souls, and Happiness

From page 90 in We:

A soul? A soul, you say? What the devil... I told you, we must cut out imagination. In everyone... Extirpate imagination. Nothing but surgery, nothing but surgery will do...

1) So imagination, in the eyes of the One State, is a sickness. Why?

In class, the idea came up that imagination could be considered "bad" because it provides the possibility of always imagining that things could be better. Imagination could promote ongoing unhappiness or discontent.
But it seems that by the same reasoning, imagination provides the possibility of always imagining that things could be worse. So imagination could also promote ongoing happiness or content.
It is exactly this variability and uncertainty that makes imagination "bad" in the mind of the One State. It is the dreaded X. It allows for creativity. But why is this bad?
Try to imagine a computer that had creativity or imagination. How efficient would it be? You tell it to calculate something and it thinks for a second, then asks "Why?". A computer that has the ability to step outside of the realm of code is not very efficient or useful. Maybe this is why the One State fears the "soul". Like computers act only according to their logic commands and code, the One State citizens without souls act only according to their logic and reasoning. They fear that if all of the citizens start developing these souls, the "wonderful" order and efficiency that the One State holds dear will be ruined. The citizens will be rendered useless.

2) Is the One State really achieving happiness for its citizens?

In order for "Good" to exist, "Evil" must exist. In order for darkness to exist, light must exist. The same seems true for happiness. If unhappiness is not a possibility, how could happiness be one? The One State citizens can't be happy. They are feeling something else. Safety maybe. Their lives, like those of computers, are decided for them. They are safe from error.