I am aware of what seems to be like a matrix of sorts. Has anyone else noticed how in the world outside your front door, there is this unseen force that kind of binds everyone together...I guess that would be called "culture" or "society," but I see it as more of a matrix. It makes better sense in my head. Anyway, I've noticed how people agree to participate in the world by doing what it is that is presented to them, usually without question. Education, family, friends, car, job, the gym, eat what they tell you, shop where they tell you, watch television, pay attention to commercials...etc etc etc. Anyway, as I've gotten older, I've noticed that I am slipping out of this matrix of sorts. Sort of like getting unplugged. Like in the movie, when Keanu spills out of his embryo thing. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? I know it may seem obvious, but I've realized just how hard I tried to participate, or stay plugged into the matrix, much to my detriment over the years. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I have sensed varying degrees of hostility from people around me, when I have let go of that world...when I have unplugged. Maybe I'm just being hard on myself for "abandoning" their world...introvert guilt, I don't know.

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"It's a big industry
And they can beat my brain
With houses, cars and shame
They are insane"
~ Iggy Pop

You call it "The Matrix"; I call it culture. I also do feel the need to unplug (most of the time), because the moment I become aware of how everyone's been doing things unquestioningly, I cringe at the reality of it. It all seems arbitrary. The one thing that saves me from completely disengaging is the thought that there must be a good intention behind that manifestation of culture, no matter how long-forgotten that intention might be. Still, it's a struggle for me to conform. ;p

Also, I think it might be a Type 4 Enneagram tendency.

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I think it's the way we've evolved into being social creatures... for us to get along, we must establish some sort of unwritten code of 'normal', and for the society to flourish and not be constantly pulled apart by extreme individualistic behaviour, most of us just naturally fall into line.

I'm sure many members of the apparently unquestioning majority do quietly question some of the things we're 'supposed' to do, but after the questioning phase, they still choose to act as society pleases, rather than go their own way. This is from personal experience--I question and fight sometimes, but often end up doing what the wider community wants me to do because it benefits the community for me to fall in line rather than take a strong stand for what I want and follow it through to the bitter end. I think my choices are partly related to the hostility you (and I) feel from others when trying to stand up for yourself... most people are looking to protect their worldviews, so if you do something that threatens the normality they've chosen to follow/believe, they naturally become hostile.

I definitely feel unplugged though, because I have a strong awareness of how silly, futile, hollow or empty some of the things we 'need to do' seem to be. Yet also, I've found that submitting to society has sometimes taught me some important lessons, proven wrong some of my assumptions and led me to some very rewarding experiences. So the matrix is not necessarily all that bad--at least in my experience.

Makes sense. How about facebook, how do you guys feel about facebook, are you members?

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"It's a big industry
And they can beat my brain
With houses, cars and shame
They are insane"
~ Iggy Pop

I am. I mainly use it to keep up with friends.

Though with all the changes, I'm trying to make the switch to Google+, but my friends are all firmly in the fb crowd... which defeats the purpose of using a social network to keep up with friends.

Not a member, probably never will be. My mum is, she uses it to spread the latest news through the family (birthdays, weddings, that sort of thing). I guess for that kind of stuff, and for keeping in touch with friends like sciski does, it's aright, but I'm not interested in any of that sort of thing, so it doesn't have any usefulness for me.

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What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. - Gerard Manley Hopkins

I generally dislike fb. -

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