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.
You raise an interesting point when saying that prosperity isn't necessarily what people strive for, but more so the attaining of prosperity. It's interesting to see that people sometimes even prefer to face adversity just to be able to claim its victory after overcoming it. The thought of this makes me think of the phrase "take the high road" or "take the road less travelled," knowing that the reward at the end will justify any suffering that may have been incurred in the process. It sounds nice and noble to think this way, but when you consider your other option, sitting in comfortable content, it makes you wonder why anyone would ever choose adversity. That is until you have something like the movie the Matrix to show us that no matter the circumstances, people will always be able to find discontent and unhappiness, despite the fact that something deliberately tried to eliminate these from life. It may be that people are naturally inclined to seek dissatisfaction, but for what reason is the important question raised. Is it that we're prone to misery, and can't accept a life of guaranteed prosperity, or is it that we prefer to know our troubles well and overcome them naturally to achieve our deserved prosperity? I'd like to believe the latter, but nonetheless, it is interesting to see this dynamic of adversity and prosperity, and how they dually affect people in a (hopefully) symbiotic way
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