Red Pill, Blue Pill or To Live or Die Authentically
In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo/Mr Anderson a choice of 2 pills - a red pill and a blue pill.
One of these pills will allow Neo/Mr Anderson to forget everything he's learnt, and return back to his normal life -i.e. to continue living as Mr Anderson, the person he believes he has always been.
The other pill allows him to remain in the Matrix as Neo - and learn all of the truths - the full truth - no matter how horrible it is.
I've found myself often thinking of this scenario in relation to my own therapeutic journey - what would I rather have?
During the therapeutic work, I've gone down the rabbit hole - digging up and excavating memories from the long past, and experiencing truths I wasn't even aware of. These experiences have shaken me to my core - indeed, they've got me to the point where I am today, a feeling of a complete loss of the self (see Who the Fuck Am I?).
Would I rather know these truths - no matter how ugly, upsetting, disturbing, terrifying they are?
Or, would I rather be ignorant of these truths? Blissfully unaware?
But that's the point - I'm not ignorant. I'm not blissful. I'm not happy. I've not been happy for quite some time now.
It is like I've been living in a simulation, like Mr Anderson, a character going through the motions of life, without ever actually living. And always with that niggling feeling that something wasn't quite right, something was amiss - that there was more to it than this.
I'm there, I'm existing, I'm present, but at the same time not present - I feel absent, as in a daze, just walking through life in a half-awake dream.
Ultimately, there wasn't really a choice for me. I couldn't carry on living like that - that's not a life, it's just an existence. So I had to take the other pill. I had to delve into the unknown and the truths - no matter how scary, disgusting it was going to be.
The unexamined life is not worth living
attrib. Socrates
And my doing that, by facing the truth it really does break down everything that you thought was real - it begins to eat away at the edges of what you thought was reality.
Because once you realise that the false self (the Mr Anderson) is not the real you, you question everything -
Who is this person?
Who am I?
If I've lived as this false being for so long, I've never really lived as the true me. It's like amnesia - when someone just forgets who they are. I know my name, I recognise my reflection in the mirror - but behind that, below the surface, as the false self begins to break away, I don't actually know what is left.
Neo: "My eyes - why do they hurt?"
Morpheus: "Because you've never used them before"
Neo & Morpheus in The Matrix (1999) Based on Plato's prisoner allegory
All I am offering is the truth - nothing more
Morpheus
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