Friday, March 25, 2022

The nature of things



This may seem like an unusual post. That's because of the unusual thoughts I'm having, I suppose. It is hard to explain. Perhaps it would help to use a device that I've used before. The device is a comparison between the movies and what I'm thinking of. An example would be the same ones I've cited before.

The first example is the movie "The Matrix". The Matrix is supposedly about some dystopian future. But what if the Matrix exists today? What if the movie is the way things really are? According to the movie, all of what everyone experiences is real, but that's not actually the case. The case is that a reality is created for everyone, and everyone is programmed to fit into that reality. There is no such thing as free will in a completely artificial existence. The Matrix, as depicted in the movie, could be the very thing that we are all experiencing in this world. As such, the movie isn't about something created out of imagination, but an artful way of expressing how life actually is.

Our world is created for us. We are constantly told what to think. We are constantly told how we should act. There is nothing spontaneous. It is all programmed in. If anyone deviates from the script, well, that's a problem. That person has to be corrected. Those types are like the "Neos" of the Matrix, who have to be hunted down and corrected, or terminated. It is a false existence that cannot be discovered unless one is "red-pilled". There are those who prefer the blue pill, and to go on believing whatever they want to believe. But you those others have to be willing to go down the rabbit hole to discover the truth. Not everyone wants to make that trip, in fact, few people in real life, do.

Then there is this other movie. "Brave New World" is a world in which this programming takes place in a "real world", which differs immensely with the world in the Savage Reservation. Which world is real? Eveyone living in each respective world sees reality according to how they are programmed. Savages are "savages" because they are taught to be savages. They chose nothing. Neither do people in the Brave New World. If someone like John finds himself misplaced there, he cannot live with it. The outcome is death. The same fate came to his mother, who no longer fits into the "civilized world", and had to be drugged to death. There is no room for deviants. Both John and his mother found themselves in a situation in which life could no longer go on. John couldn't reconcile himself to that world, and his mother could. But it did not save her, and John couldn't separate from that world. The Brave New World ended up killing both. John and his mother couldn't live in either world. Both wished to escape only to find that there was no escape.

What do you do when you are the odd man out? You either adapt, or you die. If the adaptation is not possible, then life is not possible.

How much freedom do we really have? The word gets used a lot in America, but this country might as well be a Brave New World. There is little chance for changing anything because in order to do so, you really have to make a choice. Does anyone really want to make a choice? We all seem to be pretending to be free, but we aren't. There is a tremendous amount of pretending in this society. Calling oneself "free" in that context has no real meaning.

If you cannot adapt to that reality, you may end up the "odd man out", in a world that has no place for those who don't fit in.

Perhaps that is what is happening. The movies are telling us what exists, and it does so in the guise of entertainment. Yet there may be something bigger behind it. An attempt to go down that rabbit hole. To do that, one needs the will for the red pill. When there is no such will, there can be no escaping the Matrix. Even if you do escape, what is the nature of the alternative?

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