The Matrix

By Iriyabd Khentimah

"What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."  Morpheus, from the movie The Matrix

I am certain that I am not the only one who can relate to the above quote by Morpheus from the movie, The Matrix.

Movies have the tendency to reveal some truths about the kind of world we live in. They give us clues. Maybe some writers are trying to awaken something in us. Maybe the writers are able to portray what they feel inside so nicely in a movie set.

From a small age, having to go to school Monday to Friday, this felt really unnatural to me. It cannot be natural. As children, we are supposed to be playing in nature and learning. We are full of energy. We are not supposed to be sitting down in class for hours with only one hour set aside for playing. However, there is little you can do as a child. You keep going to school until you enter high school. At this age, we are supposed to be finding our place in the world, not learning about things that will not even help us solve our immediate problems. By then, you are so conditioned that you try to act normal and follow the masses. You try to act normal to your peers. Not realising that everyone is pretending to be normal, no one is truly themselves. However, you can feel deep inside that something is very wrong, and you cannot put your finger on it until you finish high school and/or University.

You leave school and you go to work where you are subjected to a 45-hour per week work shift. You do this for the next 30 to 40 years until you retire. Surely this can't be right. Your inner self is telling you that there is something wrong. You are dying inside. You keep the pretence of normal, but you snap now and then. There is a void. You try to fill the void with material things, alcohol, drugs, and any form of entertainment. However, that void is still there; it doesn't go away.

By this time, you have all these problems keeping you occupied. You have a job, you have a wife, you have kids. You have to keep going. You make enough money to last you a month, and then you are broke again. If you are rich, you have this fear of losing your stuff. You try to buy everything you can get in the world, but in the end, you are not satisfied, and you keep wanting more. 

That is the Matrix. The reality inside of the reality. A virtual reality. A manufactured reality. A cage. A zoo. 

Does anyone know what life is like outside what we call normal? Have you ever imagined what life would be like if we all stopped pretending? What would life be like if we had enough time to actually live? What would it be like if we were not so preoccupied by daily tasks imposed on us by the system to keep us in a rat race with no chances of ever coming out alive?

All the rules we are taught. All the restrictions and social norms the system has taught us create our reality. Anything outside of that we fear and condemn. We work like agents to protect the system. We use all our energies to power the system. We end up thinking the system is us. We think we are one with the system. 

Maybe if we can truly listen to the voice inside. The voice is telling us that something is wrong. Maybe if we give that voice attention. Maybe if we investigate further. Maybe then, we can truly live up to our potential and escape the Matrix.