Recently, while I was having a conversation about my school, The Virdoe Society, my colleague asked me a great question that I hadn’t been asked before. What was the question? He asked me, “Is the Virdoe Society Red Pill?” What was my response? It was: “That’s a very good question! I’ve never thought about that. I’ll have to get back to you on that.” The question was a wonderful one. As I thought about it more and more, I realized that this was a question that I would eventually get asked over and over again in the future. The solution was to write a blog article. So here it is!
First of all, I’d like to say that I learned many things from my failed marriage. Two of those things fit this article today. Those two things are as follows:
- “Before you get into an argument, make sure you’re arguing about the same point. Otherwise, you’ll be two hours down the road and realize that you two are talking about two different things!”
- “Men don’t Argue with women. Period! As a matter of fact, men are not to Argue with anyone at all! They are to Reason! Why not argue with her? That’s a conversation for another time. (Note: I learned these two things in this order. The second point I learned almost 12 years later from my mentor.)
What Is Red Pill?–
Based on point #1, if I were to continue the conversation with my colleague, we would have to come to an agreement on the meaning of Red Pill or his interpretation of it. Then I’d have to give my definition of the term redpill to see if we were on the same page. But what is THE definition of Red Pill?
To the best of my knowledge, in the context we are using today, it comes from a man named Rollo Tommassi. But the idea originally came from the cult movie classic The Matrix. The Matrix is a science fiction movie released in 1999, starring Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves plays a guy by the name of Thomas Anderson. He goes by the name Neo in the hacker world. Neo will eventually be the focal point of the movie. Let me explain.
In the movie, Neo is curious about something called “the Matrix.” He’s looking for “it,” or more specifically, what it is (What is the Matrix?). One evening, after performing a transaction with a gentleman, he gets talked into going to a club. He initially turns down the offer but eventually goes. At the club, he bumps into a young lady whom he later finds out is the infamous hacker, Trinity.
During their conversation, she reveals to Neo that she knows what he is looking for: the Matrix. The person who can answer his questions about the Matrix is an individual by the name of Morpheus.
Later in the movie, Trinity and her associates bring Neo to their leader, Morpheus. At this time, Neo has to make a choice.
Morpheus: At last. Welcome, Neo. As you no doubt have guessed, I am Morpheus.
Neo: It’s an honour to meet you.
Morpheus: No, the honour is mine…Please, come, sit.
(Neo sits down in the armchair.)
Morpheus: I imagine that right now you’re feeling a bit like Alice…
Neo: …?
Morpheus: Tumbling down the rabbit hole? Hmm?
Neo: You…could say that.
Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees, because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth…
(Morpheus sits down in the armchair opposite Neo.)
Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why?
Neo: Because I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my own life.
Morpheus: I know…exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why
Neo: The Matrix?
Morpheus: Do you want to know…what it is…?
(Neo nods.)
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It’s all around us, even in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison…for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be…told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself.
(Morpheus opens a container which holds two pills.)
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill…you stay in wonderland…and I show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
(Neo pauses for an instant, then reaches for the red pill. But before he grabs the red pill, Morpheus says to him the following.)
Morpheus: Remember…all I’m offering you is the truth, nothing more.
(Neo continues to grab the pill and then swallows it along with a drink of water.)
Morpheus half-smiles at Neo.
Morpheus: Follow me…
Neo is now exposed to the truth of what the Matrix is–
In the next scene, Neo is told that the Red Pill is a tracking device to…“Find Him.” Eventually, Neo awakens in a mechanized pod with cables attached to his body. It looks like he’s in a mechanized womb. He is then detached from these cables and removed from the pod. I believe he also sees other humans in these same pod-like structures, as if it were a farm of humans. He sees that they are being “raised” by machines. He is ejected from this “farm” and is saved by Morpheus and his team. They pull his body up from a liquid pool and bring him on board. When Neo’s eyes open, one of the first people he sees is Morpheus. He then passes out. Morpheus and his team work on Neo’s unconscious body because all of his muscles and vision have atrophied due to disuse. Once Neo recovers, he meets the crew and is informed of the name of the ship he was on: the Nebuchadnezzar.
Neo eventually awakens. Morpheus walks into the room:
Neo: Morpheus, what’s happened to me? What is this place?
Morpheus: More important than “what” is “when.”
Neo: When?
Morpheus: You believe that it is the year 1999, when in fact it is closer to 2199. I can’t tell you exactly what year it is, because we honestly don’t know. There’s nothing I can see that will explain it for you, Neo…Come with me, see for yourself…
(Morpheus takes Neo on a tour of his ship and introduces Neo to the crew.)
Morpheus: You wanted to know what the Matrix is?
(They sit Neo in a chair and tell him to try to relax. Then they attach him to their machine for the first time. Neo wakes up in a white room. He sees Morpheus in a brown suit with a green tie. His clothing has changed also.)
Morpheus: This…is the Construct. It’s our loading program. We can load anything, from clothing…to equipment…weapons…training simulations…anything we need.
Neo: Right now we’re inside a computer program?
Morpheus: Is it really hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call “residual self-image.” It is the mental projection of your digital self.
(Neo looks at the two chairs and the television in this white room.)
Neo: This isn’t real?
Morpheus: What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel…what you can smell, taste, and see…then “real” is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. This is the world that you know. This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century (1900s).It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix.
(Morpheus turns to Neo.)
Morpheus: You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo. This…is the world as it exists today.
(Morpheus changes the channel on the television. The sky is an endless sea of black and green. The Earth appears scorched and destroyed. Nothing but rubble.)
Morpheus: Welcome…to the desert of the real…We have only bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is at some point in the early twenty-first century, all of mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own magnificence…as we gave birth…to A.I.
Neo: A.I.—you mean Artificial Intelligence?
Morpheus: A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don’t know who struck first—us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power, and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. The human generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields…endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For the longest time, I wouldn’t believe it…and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead, so they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth.What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
(Morpheus holds up a battery to Neo.)
(Neo begins to panic.)
Neo: No…I don’t believe it! It’s not possible.
Morpheus: I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.
Neo: Stop! Let me out! Let me out! I want out!
(His eyes snap open, and he thrashes against the chair, trying to rip the cable from the back of his neck. Trinity tries to calm him down.)
Trinity: Easy, Neo. Easy…
Neo: Take this thing off me! Take this thing…
Morpheus: Listen to me…
Neo: Don’t touch me! Stay away from me! I don’t want it, I don’t believe it!
(Cypher rolls his eyes at Neo as he tries to get up out of the chair.)
Cypher: He’s gonna pop.
(Neo gets up out of the chair, and as he is dizzy, he staggers about the room a bit, eventually falling onto the ground.)
Morpheus: Breathe, Neo. Just breathe…
(Neo vomits on the floor and passes out. He wakes up later, in his room. Morpheus is sitting beside him. Neo sits up slowly and looks at him.)
Neo: I can’t go back, can I?
Morpheus: No, but if you could, would you really want to? I feel I owe you an apology. We have a rule…we never free a mind once it reaches a certain age. It’s dangerous, and the mind has trouble letting go. I’ve seen it before, and I’m sorry. I did what I did because…I had to.
When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth:
‘As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.’
After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return, and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people. That is why there are those of us who have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him. I did what I did because…I believe that search is over. Get some rest, you’re going to need it.
Neo: For what?
Morpheus: Your training.
Then they begin to program Neo with information and fighting skills. He is trained on how to survive in the Matrix…
To be continued….
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