‘To know yourself is to forget yourself.’
Dogen Zenji, a Buddhist Priest, writer, philosopher, and Zen Master.
It’s Monday morning, and I’m sat at the kitchen table with my laptop, feverishly deliberating on how best to construct a thought-piece on ‘unplugging from the matrix.’ To comprehensively do justice to such a concept in a single blog post is, I fear, far beyond my capability. There are simply too many rabbit-holes this concept can lead us down, and I am struggling to focus my aim.
Perhaps this concept, I muse, inevitably spawning more questions than answers, can be so mind-boggling, that it is better to explore it in the form of a narrative, as the turn-of-the-century film ‘The Matrix’ appropriately chose to do so. Perhaps, as native storytelling creatures, it is only through our myths can we best hope to examine this resident feeling deep inside of us– that which cannot be fully expressed through words - that there is something more to us than appears on the surface, that there is a greater part of us to be realised: a reality beyond the illusions we are living under.
For that is, as far as my interpretation goes, what it means to wake up from the matrix. It is one’s continual process of fostering an awareness of the illusory constructs that pose as reality, and extricating oneself from these illusions, layer by layer.
The late, great Ram Dass often used an analogy across countless lectures in his time. He would ask his audience to imagine that they had a control switch next to their eyes, which allowed them to view the world, and especially the people of it, through different channels of perception.
On channel one, you could perceive the physical bodies of others: whether they be male, female, old, young, fat, thin, handsome or ugly. This he would call ‘the matrix of individual differences on the physical plane.’ Those who lived exclusively in this channel might find themselves preoccupied with sexual gratification, or else worried about their weight, aging, sickness and deterioration to name a few examples.
Now, should you flip over to channel two, you would perceive other people by their mental bodies: their neuroses, elations, hopes, fears and anxieties. You would come to know people according to their personalities. We could call this channel ‘the matrix of individual difference on the psychological plane.’ Those who live in this reality, come to know their characters according to the socio-psychological roles they inhabit: ‘I struggle with depression,’ ‘I’m the black sheep of the family,’ ‘I’m a Marxist artist’, ‘I’m working on myself’, ‘God is dead, and I don’t care about anything.’
Many of us, navigating from one present moment to the next, rarely move past this channel when relating to others, or indeed ourselves. In this case, our psychological constructs often constitute the sum total of who we are. This ‘socio-psychological matrix’ could be seen as a deeper understanding of our identities compared to the ‘physical matrix’ – whereby the physical body of channel one is the subordinate vessel to the ‘real you’ over on channel two – though this perspective is also limited, and we could probe even deeper still.
After further flicking through channels, we might arrive at ‘the soul’ channel, where what you perceive when you look into another person’s eyes is another ‘being’ looking straight back at you. You are one soul recognising another soul. This could be termed ‘the matrix of recognising other beings on the astral or spiritual plane’. Here, the territory of perception shifts, and individual differences are demoted in their significance; as Ram Dass described it, they are merely ‘the packaging in which another being is encased.’
Another channel on from that, and when you look into someone else’s eyes, you see yourself looking at yourself looking straight back at yourself. God, The Creator, Universal Consciousness – adopt whichever term you’re comfortable with – is observing itself observing itself observing itself. Here then, in this matrix, we move beyond the illusion of separation. As Ram Dass put it: ‘On this plane, there is only one of us, one awareness in a multiplicity of forms. We are the One behind the Many, acting like the Many, in order to carry out this illusion.’
Now, most of us, not yet enabled with such extraordinary gifts of perception, can only ever intellectually conceptualise this latter matrix. Such is the sieve of the thinking mind. Though Ram Dass’s metaphor works well to point out that there are multiple matrices through which we might perceive. All of which make answering the question of ‘who am I?’ a little more complicated.
Taking each of these matrices into account, and to quote the indomitable Ram Dass one last time, an appropriate answer may very well be: ‘I am the One who becomes the Many, who has a unique set of factors to work out, through a unique astral, psychological and physical body.’
Hardly an answer to take with you speed dating, but still one worthy of contemplation. In this answer, we can appreciate that when we ask ourselves who we are, we are also asking what the true nature of reality is. At their core, the two questions are in fact the same question, albeit worded differently.
It is not for nothing that the plotline of the original Matrix film is centred on the protagonist becoming ‘the One.’ And on this journey to becoming the one, he must resolve himself of former identity constructs – dismantling them in order to revise his conception of who he is. Ultimately, our protagonist learns that he cannot realise his identity as the One unless he believes he is so.
That our protagonist is called Neo is no accident. The astute reader will notice that Neo is an anagram of one. However, ‘neo’ is also a suffix, meaning ‘the new of revived form’ of something, such as ‘neo’ in neogenesis: the regeneration of a previously formed substance. This connotation of regeneration and rebirth is a quality that will consistently characterise our protagonist throughout his story.
In the beginning of the film’s narrative – Neo is a mere alter-ego – our protagonist calls himself Thomas A. Anderson, the name of the socio-psychological construct by which he predominantly knows himself: his ego. He is portrayed as a conflicted pawn in the capitalist machine, cubicle-bound to office hours, dissatisfied with the cattle-trade of his everyday life, and grappling with this intuitive feeling that there must be something more.
This grappling provokes investigation, which eventually leads to his meeting Morpheus, a mentor-character, who offers Mr. Anderson the chance to answer this nagging intuition. He confirms that he has indeed been living under the roof of falsehoods and there is more to his world than he can presently conceive. Morpheus then presents him with a choice. He can choose to take the blue pill and resume his normal life experience as before, or he can take the red pill and choose to face the truth, no matter how uncomfortable the consequences.
Of course, it would be a dull film if he didn’t choose the red pill, and once he does so, he is unplugged - quite literally - from ‘the Matrix’ by his allies. We watch the graphic depiction of our hero’s awakening through his perspective, in which he wakes to find himself in an egg-shaped pod, encased within a membranous layer filled with a viscous, murky, blood-coloured soup. There is something analogous to the womb about it, and this reminiscence only extends when his limbs push through the membrane, splitting it open like an amniotic sack.
As he emerges from the primordial liquid which contains him, we discover he has a black cable running into his mouth and down his throat – suggestive of an umbilical cord – which he wrenches free, and with a greedy inhale, takes his first breath. He soon finds that there are more of these umbilical cables running leech-like into his arms, his legs, his spine and head. He takes note of his surroundings, and to his horror, discovers his pod is just one of thousands of such pods, in which fully grown adults are kept induced in comatose states, curled into foetal folds like unborn infants, quietly gestating.
Like recoiling serpents, the cables angrily hiss as they pop out of his body one by one. He collapses, and the pod opens beneath him, sending him down a long and winding chute in a flooding gush of soup, until he falls into a large body of water. The symbology is stark: our protagonist has only just been born. Not only born, but reborn.
The large body of water into which he lands, sinks, and is fully submerged, calls to mind the Christian tradition of baptism. Again, the notion of rebirth is reiterated. He has departed from one perspective and entered into another just as the newborn evacuates their womb dimension – which up until then represented their absolute conception of all reality – and enters into a larger world that supersedes the limits of their previously possible imaginings.
Our protagonist has now been freed into ‘the real world’. It is revealed to him that he has been living under a programmed illusion, a simulated reality, and that the majority of humanity are still plugged into their collective illusions, unconsciously enslaved to them, and asleep to the actualities of the real world. One of his new acquaintances, Cipher, even expresses an envy of this. After all, ignorance is bliss: to be unaware of an unpleasant fact is to be untroubled by it. For the real world is portrayed in apocalyptic vision: it is scarred, hostile, and full of suffering – and those few ‘awake’ human beings must daily struggle to survive. The truth might set us free, but rarely is it pretty.
To awaken from the matrix is to be liberated from all we once believed were firm and intransigent facts, but a steep learning curve accompanies such liberation. Our protagonist’s foundations are swiftly dismantled, he is thrown into free-fall, and his former ego dissolves as he desperately navigates the rules of his newfound territory. Now he is known as Neo, and with this new identity come fresh problems and great expectations. It has been prophesised that he is the chosen one, the saviour foretold to emancipate the rest of humankind from their mass delusion and suffering.
Arguably, Neo has merely left one matrix only to tumble into another.
He has expanded his awareness of self, only to find that his new understanding comes with its own challenges and hardships. On succeeding one purpose, he suddenly finds that the goalposts have shifted. His destiny is far greater than he could ever have imagined – a mirror image of the life journey itself - and he does not feel capable in his new role. Whilst others stow faith in him, he does not truly believe it in his heart.
It is only by the film’s climax, when the life of his mentor hangs in the balance, does he realise his prophesised identity as the One. Under the intense pressure of extreme circumstances, Neo is forced to make a choice. He is warned that the attempt to save Morpheus is an impossible undertaking, a suicide mission – and yet he chooses to do so regardless. He knows all too well that the only way to save his friend is through sacrificing himself – and he accepts that cost. Such acceptance propels him forward through a series of events culminating in Morpheus’ rescue and his forewarned death. Where Morpheus escapes, Neo is ambushed and shot down.
Miraculously, however, Neo wakes from his death-slumber and rises again. He is resurrected just as many prophesised saviours before him. His murderers turn to face him, bewildered at what has just occurred, and fire their weapons. Whereas Neo has dodged bullets earlier in the storyline – a hint of his superordinary potential – now he no longer needs to. This time, he simply raises his hand and freezes them mid-flight. His superordinary potential is finally fully realised.
On waking from death, the resurrected Neo has claimed his identity as the One. He is the One because he chose to be so. It was only through the willing sacrifice of his former self could he hope to regenerate and arrive at this realisation. Here he has left behind one realm of belief and stepped into another, thus, finally understanding the power of belief. Such power is demonstrated in his ability to stop bullets. It is belief that allows him to manipulate the Matrix as he so chooses, for it is a fluid construct and malleable to his will.
Our beliefs shape our reality. Or put otherwise, our believing in a reality makes it so. Our thoughts and perceptions inform our lived experiences. From the perspective of the individual, identity and reality are not conjoined twins: they are the same evolving organism. That Neo’s major shifts in both are represented as a process of rebirth and resurrection is a deliberate design. Death and birth are comparable as two sides of the same coin. Destruction is the flipside to reconstitution.
We are often changed by life events, whether orchestrated by our hand or not. Though it is telling that Neo willingly chooses to risk losing ‘himself’ twice-over. He knowingly trades everything he knows in order to know more; to expand his consciousness. First, in his initial unplugging from the matrix, and secondly, through sacrificing himself. We can be the architects of our own reinvention if we so choose, though we must understand that to reconfigure one’s beliefs demands a willing sacrifice of them; rebirth necessitates forgetting oneself.
Our beliefs inform our present realities, they are the raw materials from which our personal matrices are constructed. Your strength lies in whether you are awake to this fact or not. Where you are unconscious of it, there you are a slave to it. Where you are conscious, there you have the power to transcend it – to realise your potential and bend reality to your will.
The underlying message of the Matrix is not in simply transcending a single matrix, but in repeatedly migrating from one matrix to the next in order to reap one’s ultimate potential. It is the conscious effort of butting up against your barriers and limitations time and again, and the steady – often painful – regenerative process of dismantling them. The increasing of one’s consciousness is akin to gradually filling a room with light. The shadows recede into the corners, and what once lay in the darkness is exposed – even if it is not pleasant to look upon at first. We undress our imagined monsters until eventually, the shadows recede to such a point, that what you once mistook for a closed room is revealed to be an ever-expansive space, without walls and without boundaries.
In ruminating on unplugging, I wrote this poem. I chose to let it come out as it came, with as little doctoring as necessary. Possibly, I will choose to develop it further, I hope you enjoy it.
This prospering tongue found my mouth
just as the mute founded morse code,
another blameless and blinking oracle
expanding and contracting,
chattering over the aching desirable,
endlessly unachievable,
gasping lobotomy of thoughts
that eluded my grasp
once more.
Matryoshka, you keep bringing me down,
the summit of your toothless maw
are the roots of another mountain,
and I am levelled to the base,
grounded in an unculled lamb’s skin,
and like the devil’s needle
pinned into every manmade plan
the butcher’s knife still rests
in the chopping block,
waiting to cleanse the killing floor
with the water of the innocents.
Child, you are an ancient creature,
I can see it in your behaviour,
despite appearances
you have been here before,
closely listen, neonate,
your womb was an ill-fitting shoe,
and you, apostate, who
abandoned catacombs of doubt,
those bottled night-terrors;
memories sunken intravenously
of the tribes that no longer served you,
of the flesh that outlasted its tattoo,
Open your eyes,
raise your lips and ready your hands,
this is the scorched earth of the blind,
where the native tenancy live
under the roof of falsehoods:
such is the sieve of the thinking mind.
And on entering the oldest,
most prolific and largest
cult yet alive,
where the local sport
is in plucking the wings off of flies
and turning them into walks,
you would do well to remember:
we did not make it
to the ends of our world
by believing in the monsters
drawn at the edges of our maps.
Child, you are irradiated with it,
the glow of a liberated spirit,
and you will find these strung-up adults
knotted in webs of their own making
will feed from you, exact
from your atomic bloom
and bed into your ungoverned vision,
and at the last hurdle,
dismantle and correct it
with the blackest of envies
for you are the vacancy
of an unaltered spot,
the precarious junction
of pure and ambrosial infancy
to which they are magnetised
as relentlessly and as inevitably
as the wandering wisps of the unfinished
are doomed to starve forevermore.
Thanks for reading, Josh.
