The Matrix

     I (finally) watched "The Matrix" last night.

     Many, many insights.


     Probably all people of my age, particularly political, religious, and corporate leaders, ought to watch this movie in order to gain some understanding of what the young people of this culture, this society, think about them and their constructs.  So many older people are still clinging to the ideas that the system is sound.  They preach to the young that working to improve mankind's lot from within the system is the purpose we are all intended for.  They really believe that, and they really believe that the kids will fall in line, sooner or later.  How quaint.

     Then, there is the total misconception of energy.  If you haven't watched it, one of the supporting theses of the movie is that the sun has been burned out but that life goes on.  The world is owned and controlled by digital machines which use human beings as energy source, as "batteries".  Huh?  Do the young people really have so little understanding of the physical properties of potential and kinetic energy?  Well, of course they do.  How else could I explain how young people can be so bamboozled into believing that solar, or wind, or hydrogen (!) can be used as an eergy source in the future more potent than crude oil? 

     Then, there is the total flattening of computer programming, computer data, and the process of human learning.  The movie proposes that a human can be taught a subject by simply inserting a floppy disk and reading it, in about three seconds.  No wonder the kids today take school with such a blazee attitude.  Why bother learning math or physics or engineering, when it can simply be loaded in, on the spot, if the need ever should arise? 

     I am of course appalled that most cashiers today cannot even make change correctly in their heads, they need the cash registers to do it for them.  The other day I was debating with a cashier friend of mine whether or not this skill is even needed.  She stauchly insisted that she did not ever need this skill because the machines could always do it faster and more accurately.  So I asked her quickly if she could give me change, two tens for a five.  The exchange was made and I went on my way, content to let her win the discussion.

     Most impactful to me was Hollywood's age-old fantasy about true love and sex.  Central to the plot is how one kiss, accompanied with a vow of true love, could bring a human being back from death.  No wonder there are so many divorces in this country.  There are so, so many people who believe (and I myself was counted with them for the majority of my adulthood, which is why I've been divorced four times) who blindly believe that there exists for them a sexual partner who will save them from their own foolishness, all of it.

     Thank God for God.