I have a family blog that still gets a lot of readership from JWs who currently shun us. I have ways of tracking them and can actually pinpoint it down to specific individuals, how many pageviews, etc. It's been interesting.
Anyways, I have been putting little subtle things over the last few weeks, and plan on putting more direct information up, like this one:
"Life Outside The Matrix"
It's hard to believe we have been in [our new location away from JW family] for almost a year! There have certainly been a lot of changes - for sure.
After a long period of reflection and examination, we made some deliberate decisions a year and a half ago that have changed our family's direction in large and unimaginable ways.
It actually reminded me of a very poignant scene in the movie, The Matrix. (Minus the cool martial arts, large guns, and sexy skintight leather outfits of course. Yes I am talking to you Carrie-Anne Moss.)
For those who never saw it, the fictional plot of The Matrix is that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). The Matrix was constructed and is run by machines of the future who use humans as a source of power. Humans are literally farmed. The false reality information they are fed makes them feel like they are living in the real world, with real jobs and families and purpose - but it's all an illusion created by the supercomputers.
This obviously fictional plot is really a vehicle for the larger questions about life and existence and stuff like that.
The Choosing Scene
There is a scene where Neo (the main character played by Keanu Reeves) is presented with a choice to know the Truth about his reality - or to choose not to know. If he took the blue pill, he could get an idea of what life is like outside the Matrix, but he would end up back in his bed like it was a dream and not remember any of it. However, if he took the red pill he would be forever removed (literally unplugged) from the comfortable illusion of the Matrix and would have to deal with real life - a life that he doesn't even know if he will like.
What would you do?
In retrospect, I could liken some of our choices over the past year or so to a similar analogy - whether we wanted to take the blue pill or red pill.
When I typed "red pill blue pill" into Google, I found a really cool article on the Matrix Philosophy and how it borrows from religious and philosophical symbolism in ways that many viewers probably never realized.
Their examination of the "Choosing Scene" pretty much sums up a lot of my feelings:
The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand [you have] everyone you love and everything that you have built your life upon. One the other [you have] the promise only of truth.
The question then is not about pills, but what they stand for in these circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth pursuing. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing your teeth.
The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find the truth. We don't know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality you have never experienced.
I really enjoy their descriptions of what the advantages of each pill is.
First, the blue pill:
So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about?
By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system. Morpheus (the leader of the resistance outside the Matrix) says to Neo "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."(Amen to that!)
The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.
Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the status quo is not in fact the truth?(Good question!) The act of simply questioning does not infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?
And the red pill?
To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are."
Given the potential disadvantages of choosing the red pill, the motivation for discovering the truth must then be very strong. The film makes much of this point. Trinity (Neo's friend outside the Matrix) says to Neo "It's the question that drives us, Neo." and Morpheus compares the motivation for Neo's search to "a splinter in your mind - driving you mad." The motivation for answering the question is obviously strong as the answer will help us to find the meaning in our lives.
What we are looking at here is the drive to answer a question, but the key to this is what drove the question in the first place. The asking of questions about our environment our experience and ourselves is fundamental to the human condition. Children ask a seemingly never-ending stream of questions from an early age. It is only with education and socialisation that some people stop asking these questions. However, we remain, as it were, hard-wired to enquire.
This is an inevitable consequence of consciousness. A being with a mind, conscious of itself and its existence, experiencing a reality, needs to organise the data that it receives from its senses. Simply observing and recording does not allow for consciousness. It is what we do with that information that allows us to think. In order to process and store the vast amount of information received, the human brain attempts to identify patterns in the data; looking for the patterns behind what is experienced. This is asking questions of the sensory information, and requires reasoning. By definition a conscious mind seeks to know. Knowing something requires more than just data, but intelligence or reasoning applied to that data. To attempt to obtain knowledge we must therefore question the data our mind receives; thus, consciousness questions.
I'm sure most readers stopped about halfway through and relegated all this to their process of cognitive dissonance.
For those of you that did stick with it. Let it be known that I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers or absolute Truth. That attitude is neither faithful nor discreet.
However, today I can say I do know what the Truth is not, and for that I am more grateful than I ever imagined I could be.
Like the article above mentioned, "Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution." As a family, we have experienced that firsthand. But we knew it would happen going in, and the people that treat us in such a way have done nothing but help reinforce our decision was the correct one. But to those precious few of you that have remained in touch with us and continue to share your lives with us, we would like you to know we value and cherish that relationship greatly.
I recognize many people would prefer the illusion. In the movie, there was another guy that was unplugged from the Matrix - named Cipher. He took the red pill too - initially thinking he wanted to get out of the fake reality. Real life was a little TOO REAL for him and he asked to be put back in the Matrix - a comfortable life of existence based on an illusion.
I know more than a few people could identify with wanting to be 'made comfortable' to live out the rest of their existence. So I don't condemn those people. I don't hate them. I don't even think I am better than them. It's simply not the choice for me.
What our family chose to leave was not the only Matrix in this world we live in. There are plenty of other fictional realities out there. Though I was never Mormon, I found a really great example of a fictional reality (Mormonism) trying to protect themselves from the free-flow of information as I read this letter from an ex-Mormon. Thankfully though, as we get further and further into the 'Information Age' it is harder and harder for these fictional realities to exist. Many of the leaders of these fictional realities even go so far as to ban people from reading material that questions their belief system, and slap labels on people who dare to question their authority.
A few quotes I have kept close to me lately:
"When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them." -- Orison Swett Marden
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -- Ambrose Redmoon