The Matrix has you, Neo

A certain someone who's shaped me the way I am once told me that the best lessons in life come when they're least expected. Maybe I'd dismissed that back then as another one of the "The best things in life come free" kind of statement. Today, I very certainly agree. Not often does the philosophy of The Matrix become clear to you at 3 am, whilst returning from the ground floor bathroom after a rare late-night bath.

“Free your mind, Neo”, said Morpheus, famously. Whatever Mr. Director intended to say then, it just means one thing to me right now. Quite literally, free yourself from whatever you’ve been programmed to do. For being programmed is probably the worst state you’re ever in.

Indian ethics. One of the more passionately debated topics of today, with the debates not restricting themselves to be purely verbal. Sex, lust, greed, and all that jazz which being uttered in Indian homes today might lead to controversy. It is these very ethics that caused me to realize what we’ve been taught every time someone tells us to “free our mind”. The night saw me having arguably my best phone conversation. Never before had my thoughts been so clear, so smooth and so easily transferrable into words. The friend and I spoke about things which would not just bond us closer than ever, but would make me come to the realization that more people in the world are programmed than we’d ever imagine.

How would one define “programmed”? A simple example – Making out when one is not “going out” with the girl. Even though the guy has intense emotional and physical attachment to the girl, making out is specially reserved for after they start “going out”. Are a simple question and the affirmative answer the key to establish trust between two individuals? Or is it the constant building up of trust in a slow yet sure way, which makes the two people, eventually, quite unable to live without each other? I mean, this is as preposterous as little kids believing that the exchange in garlands changes everything for the woman, and she ends up having kids. That’s programming for you. Something fixed with such a brilliantly tested algorithm, that it refuses to fail, howmuchever you try finding a loophole in it. Something embedded so deep in a system, that to alter that piece of coding, the whole system needs to be altered.

And crashing down upon me came the realization of how important it is to “free your mind”. To see the truth, to see the world as it is. The Matrix might have shown us the literal version of it, with the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar very literally “pulling a plug” out of Neo’s “programmed” mind, but not too many realize the vast applications of this. I don’t attribute the realization to myself; it is wholly the credit of the friend who got me to this junction. We need to start questioning. We need to start thinking beyond the realms of the physics and the chemistry we’re taught, and start thinking right from our fundamentals. For the programming starts ever since we’re born. Building your fundamentals on your own will never be done, they will be “taught” to you as empirical relations. So many people try to tell us to study and study more, but does anybody bother explaining why when we’re kids? As we grow, the nature of this programming changes. So many people keep trying to drill us with the fact that sex before marriage is a bad, bad thing, but does anybody explain why? How is it that so many people live inside the Matrix, but never figure out they’re there? Brilliant, Morpheus, just plain brilliant!

Does anybody bother explaining whether emotional and physical relationships are best when they’re same, or best when they’re different, or whether their nature depends from person to person? How come we’re never taught in schools and colleges how to handle our emotions, when the teacher-folk very well know we’re gonna encounter it someday? Why are “relationships” randomly given a bad name, without any explanations? Why do mothers, without any justification, tell their daughters never to get too involved with boys, knowing all too well that someday, the daughter’s gonna end up asking questions and most probably be a rebel?

Why are purely physical relationships considered bad, always? I am not questioning the fundamental, just wondering why we aren’t given an explanation as to WHY they’re bad. Maybe learning out of pure experience is the way it’s meant to be. Maybe it’s the journey, not the destination that matters. Maybe it lies in the simple fact, that the best lessons in life come when you’re least expecting them.

Maybe next time when I need an answer, I should just scroll up!