Blogging Around: Anya and Cormac

              My first response was to Anya’s Dialects: “Fate and Control”, where she talked about the different reasons people choose to believe in fate.  She also discussed which one seemed more powerful. In the end, she came to the conclusion that there is a little bit of both involved in determining the future, and that she believes neither one is completely the answer.

Anya!

                This was a really interesting post. While looking around I didn’t see this topic covered in anyone else’s blog, and it drew me in right away. The Matrix gave everyone a lot of different ideas to explore, but the two you chose to compare seemed especially compelling to me.

               The part where you described your grandmother and father’s different reasoning for their beliefs was especially fascinating to me. I think everyone’s wondered about fate at least once in their lives. Like you, I know several people who have decided that they like the idea of fate. Their reasoning is that they like the idea that they aren’t completely responsible for their actions, and that the fact that everything is already planned out makes them feel more at ease. I also know people, who disagree with the idea of fate, which they claim is just a superstitious way to avoid responsibility.

               Personally, I think I agree more with you. There seems to be a little bit of a mix between the two. Logically, I can support this by saying that even if there is no such thing as fate, there are things that we cannot avoid due to the fact that certain events are to results of hundreds of different and miniscule actions over long periods of time that we cannot possibility keep track of.

Thanks for the post!

              My second response was to Cormac’s “Change of Mind: Once” where he discussed the disconnect between his former ideas of true love and the love portrayed in the movie Once.

Cormac!

               Nice post, I really liked reading it. I had a lot of the same thoughts while watching the movie actually.

                To be honest, I’ve always been a believer in the idea of true love. Like you, I always imagined a kind of love that lasted forever, and that involved two people that were absolutely perfect for each other. Then, like you, as I grew up, I began to see beyond the Disney portrayals of love. In the real world, love failed a lot more times than it succeeded, and I didn’t see very many examples of a true-and-perfect love.

  

              Once showed me the alternative to what I used to think was the only “true” form of love. It showed people who were content to be around each other, even though they didn’t have a very physical relationship and didn’t end up together in the end. At first I was upset (like you), but then I realized that this is actually a much more realistic version of love, and although it couldn’t compare to my former idealistic version I could definitely see the beauty in this sort of relationship.

               I still believe in true love, but I’ve realized that it’s incredibly rare to see it in real life. So in the mean time, I’ll keep my mind more open to other, more likely version of love. Thanks for the post!

Dialects: Adversity and Prosperity

              If you asked someone what their idea of a happy life would be, a lot of people would say it would be one without hardships. A life without obstacles, without pain, and without suffering sounds perfect; some may even say it’s the ideal life. However, what of the value of struggle? Of triumph in the face of catastrophe? The Matrix sets the stage for a fascinating dialogue between adversity and prosperity, and allows for further exploration into the relationship between these two concepts.

                The purpose of the actual Matrix is this: to create a false world in which humans can thrive in order to allow the machines ruling the actual planet to absorb energy from the humans. Humans are kept fed and content, and in a roundabout way they are shielded from the harsh reality of the destroyed world surrounding their physical bodies. It isn’t out of the question that if the people within the Matrix knew of the condition of the real world, they would choose to stay within the Matrix rather than escape to the outside world and try to rebuild their society from scratch. It would be so much easier to just accept the peaceful Matrix rather than fight a David vs Goliath rebellion against the machines. In fact, there was one character that actually did this: Cipher.

                Cipher was taken out of the Matrix by Morpheus, and spent a while fighting for the human cause against the machines. He experienced both the Matrix and the outside world, and eventually chose to re-enter the Matrix and wipe his memory of any semblance of the real world.  His reasoning? He decided he’d rather return to the Matrix and be live a life full of virtual rewards that the machines would give him, rather than struggle to fight for his own race any longer.  Why would he want to struggle so much in the harsh real world if he didn’t have to? Clearly he sided with a life of prosperity; a life free from the hardship of staging a revolution, living in rags, and eating gruel. Instead, he chose juicy steaks, wealth, and celebrity.

                However, there are others in the Matrix who chose the other path: to take on adversity and the unique rewards it brings. Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo all chose to escape from the Matrix and fight with the rebelling humans. They chose the fight, the rags, and the gruel over all the privileges of living in the Matrix. Why would they do this? Perhaps there is more to human nature than just seeking peace and contentedness. The ones who left the Matrix did so to fight for their cause, with the intention of overcoming the ruling machines. The main benefit of struggle is that it often times leads to victory, success, and triumph; a peaceful, prosperous life doesn’t offer the same.

               One of the best pieces of evidence for this idea is that when the machines first designed the Matrix, they designed what they thought was humanity’s ideal world: one without struggle and hardship. They were surprised to find that the humans were still unhappy, and that they rejected the highly prosperous world. This serves to show that humans actually need hardship in order to be happy, and not that a perfect life is not one without adversity.

              In the end there is no single winner in this debate; neither prosperity nor adversity is enough for any human being. Different characters in the Matrix chose different paths, but both had aspects of hardship and prosperity within them.  Within the Matrix there are still daily struggles like paying bills, and outside there is the camaraderie of your fellow rebels. A life with no struggle is not a life at all, but without a little prosperity involved, people would be too downtrodden and miserable to live. In this way, the two concepts are inextricably connected. Perhaps though, by discussing the two in terms of each other like this, we can come to a better understand of the delicate balance between them.