Gray

The other day I had a revelation. I noticed that I always seem to be more troubled about life in general when I have no other problems going on. Almost like my mind craves a problem and so creates one. And then I remembered something from The Matrix.

AGENT SMITH:
Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost.

Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering.

The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization.

I know the enemy said it, and I know we're supposed to think how crazy and messed-up he is that he would think that, but I have to mostly agree with him. (Besides, I've found that in a lot of really great movies or TV shows, the enemy has some knowledge to impart--despite the fact that they're evil, you can't ignore the truth of what they're saying. I think it helps make them look more daunting, more godlike. Discuss.) So I have to agree with Agent Smith. People crave suffering. While people spend their lives trying to escape it--cold, hunger, the absence of love-- suddenly, if the world is peaceful, they find the need to go searching for misery when it's not there. At least if you're hungry, sick, homeless, have no money, are in physical danger, your problems are more urgent but less deep. You've got plenty of misery to deal with and don't need to go looking for more. But if you have everything you think you want (home, family, money, fulfilling job), you just have to look harder for problems. You have to dig deep to find them and the only ones you can find are the ones that you chew on for days on weeks on months on end: "Who am I? Why am I here? Do I matter?" (Now I won't be a true nerd and mention Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but, you know, I could.)


And, okay, I know this will cross the line into making this a Matrix superfan post.... but while I was looking for that, I found this. Now I remember why I liked that movie so much. It's too bad that the sequels sucked, because it made people start to remember the first one as being bad, too, when it wasn't.

AGENT SMITH:
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.

Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague. And we are... the cure.

Sometimes when I see construction trailers and bulldozers perched at the edge of untouched farmland, I think of that.

Anyway.

Days like today, cold misty days with a smell of hot fried breakfast in the air, they make me think of Great America and how it seemed like every time we went it was cold and damp like that. It never seemed worth it to me, the getting cold and soaked to the core, toes turning into soggy icicles, even if we did get to go on all the rides with no wait.

Also, why is drizzle such a fun-sounding word and sleet such a hard, unforgiving one? It seems strange for two things so similar.

Big Event of the Day: Tango practice!
Percent Chance: 92%