Tag Archives: movies

Living in the Matrix

I’m re-watching the Matrix 20 minutes a day. I hop on my exercise bike and start watching where I left off the day before. There is a lot to enjoy in this cult classic film. I forgot about the metaphor of the human race as a virus rather than a mammal. When you look at the way we spread, destroying our host (world), it’s a brilliant comparison.

But the moment I love most is the choice Neo has to take the red or blue pill. Discover the truth and never be able to return, or return to ‘normal life’ oblivious to even having made the choice… go back and live in the matrix.

How many of us spend time stuck in the matrix? Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, watch entertainment on tv or our phones, go to sleep, wake up… repeat. I remember a friend telling me about his life after high school. He got a good job in a factory and him and two buddies would work, go home, have an early dinner, go to his friend’s house, get high, and just hang out. Weekends were just longer times of being high. He did this for almost 5 years before going to university and he describes these as his ‘wasted years’. No new life experiences, no memories to cherish, nothing but a blur of wasted time.

I remember when the kids were young and my wife and I were working full time. A month would go by where all we did was work and ‘feed and water’ the kids. We were coping, we were managing our lives, we weren’t ‘living’. It wasn’t always like that, we have some wonderful memories from that time, but we certainly had periods in the early years of having two kids where that was our reality.

I wonder how many people are living in that kind of world right now? The ‘wasted months’ or ‘wasted years’. Going through the daily motions of surviving and coping, but not really living. Consumed by the rat race. Here is a brilliant short movie Happiness, that shares exactly what I’m trying to describe about existing, but not really living, in the matrix.

Truth is stranger than fiction

Setting the stage for Part 1: April 24th, 2015

It was 5 years ago yesterday. I remember the exact day because it’s not every day that a DeLorean  appears out of nowhere, flying down your street. There was a thunderous ‘crack’ that echoed through the neighbourhood, and I opened the front door in time to hear the soft rumble of the flying car hovering above our street. It landed and turned into my driveway. The x-wing shaped door on the driver side opened up and I was shocked when none other than Emmett Lathrop “Doc” Brown, Ph.D, came springing out of the car, heading directly for me.

Doc: Are you Dave Truss?

Me: Ummm, yeah.

Doc: I’ve got a USB zip drive, can I use your computer.

Not waiting for a response, he rushed through the door, passing me and headed into my living room. He stood there dishevelled, holding a key chain with a zip drive dangling along with a couple keys next to it.

Me: OK, um, this way.

I lead him to my dining room table, placed my computer between us, logged in and pointed the keyboard closer to him. He shoved the zip drive into the USB slot on my computer. He seemed rushed.

Doc: I’m going to show you something. It’s from the future. Five years from now there is going to be a pandemic as bad the 1918 Spanish Flu and President Donald Trump is…

Me: Wait, what? Donald Trump is President… of what?

Doc: The USA! I tell you there’s going to be a global pandemic in 5 years and that’s what you ask me?

Me: Sorry, I thought you were being serious.

Doc: I am! Shut up and let me finish. President Donald Trump, he makes things a lot worse, I mean A LOT WORSE. But you can stop it.

Me: Umm, you’re nuts.

Doc: Look, here is a video of President Trump 5 years from now.

We watch the video together.

Me: Ok, where are the cameras?

Doc: What?

Me: You are pranking me. I’m on Candid Camera, right? Who put you up to this? Where are the cameras? Those aren’t real goggles are they? You’re hiding a camera in them, aren’t you?

I reach for the goggles on his head and he pulls away.

Doc: Listen, the fate of the world is in your hands, did you not see the video I just showed you, it’s from 5 years into the future, your future, and…

Me: …and it’s a skit from Saturday Night Live!

Doc: What?

Me: Or a sitcom? Or from Late Night with Seth Meyers… it’s a comedy skit. It’s funny, made me laugh. Good one.

Doc: No! No-no-no, this is the future. This is going to happen in 5 years. This is your future, and you can change it.

Me: You’re funny.

Doc: …Your’s an idiot, do you not understand the seriousness of what I’m telling you.

Me: Are you really trying to tell me that ridiculous video is from the future? …And you want me to take you seriously?

Doc: YES!

Me: Hey Doc, if that’s “The Future”, come back and find me then, and I’ll give you a million bucks.

Doc: I don’t want your money, I need your help!

Me: Well I don’t think you are getting either. I think it’s time for you to reveal the Candid Camera cameras, and let’s both have a laugh, or it’s time for you to leave.

Doc: Unbelievable.

Me: Exactly.

Setting the stage for Part 2: April 24th, 2020

Yesterday: I arrived home from work, parked my car and started walking up my front steps… Then it happened. It had been 5 years, but the sound was unmistakable. There was a thunderous ‘crack’ that echoed through the neighbourhood, followed by the rumble of the flying DeLorean, hovering above our street. The car lands and turns up my driveway. The driver side x-wing door opens and a not-too-impressed Doc greets me.

Doc: Hello David…

End.

____

“There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong.” ― Neil Gaiman

Comedic responses to the video above.

In on the laugh

I don’t get it? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t feel I’m in on it.

I went to a movie tonight, it wasn’t a comedy, but it had a few laughs in it. One of the funnier moments was also in the movie trailer and it got the biggest laugh of the night… but not from me.

Why not from me? I’d seen it already. To me it is much less funny the second time. But I’ve noticed for years and years of going to movie theatres that the pre-watched comedy in the movie trailer often gets the bigger laughs.

Why is that? Is it because theatre goers want to share their experience with others? Is it ‘safe’ to be vocal because everyone knows the punchline? Is it fulfilling because everyone gets to be in on the laugh?

What is it in human nature that makes this a thing? Whatever it is, I don’t think I have it. I don’t feel like I’m in on the laugh… but a lot of people do.

What am I missing?