There´s a blue pill on my shelf

Contemplations from a young man´s struggle with the weight of awareness.

This is landing out of “niche” with my usual articles about technological solutions, but as I enter the fourth month since I opened this publication, I feel the need to express something beyond the limitations I had set for myself as a writer. Technology is meant to cultivate a better human experience; to improve the quality of our lives, and free up time to pursue higher goals. Yet here we are, surrounded by technology, and struggling to survive. It´s a paradox I cannot ignore.

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Morpheus (Matrix)

There´s a blue pill on my shelf. The active components of this chemical compound are cognitive dissonance and deliberate ignorance, and side affects include a life of subconscious slavery, but on the box it is said to make it all a little “easier”. The marketing team did a good job, but I can´t avert my gaze. I´m too busy reading the fine print at grocery stores; trying not to eat poison.

While the pill is on my shelf, it´s also in the water. Flourosilicic acid, astrezene, and a pick-n-mix of pharmaceuticals from the neighbour´s urine are bound to soften the edges and conjure some queer ideas. All this progress, just to drink poison from the taps, and technological solutions come to counter technological assault, of industries who discard toxic waste by lobbying politicians to feed it to us. Wouldn´t it be easier to close my eyes, and drink the bitter fluid? With time, I might get used to the taste, but the concept of swallowing it insults me.

Awareness is to my detriment, because problems are so vast. The world is what it is, but how much longer will it last? With war in the distance, and dissonance here at home, the ground feels like sand, but I´d rather pretend it were stone. If the home I build sinks some day, into the belly of the Earth, would it have been better to have believed in the benevolence of faceless overlords, or to have faced the grain, braced the storm, and seized the outcome of my fate with the capacity of my own ability?

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”

William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

There´s a blue pill on all of our shelves, but it´s also in the taps, in the food, in the drugs, in the vaccines, in the “vaccines”, in the phones, in the televisions, on the news, in the schools, and we pay for all of it. What is being aware? Aware of what? Aware of mechanisms which cut us off from awareness. Aware of technology which weakens us with convenience and instant gratification. Aware of food which makes us sick. Aware of drugs which make us sicker. Aware of sickness itself and how to heal. Beyond the darkness? Aware of who we are, why we´re here, what we have come to do, and how to do it. Perhaps also, to be conscious that we´re not as aware as we may think.

Oversoul by Alex Grey

I don´t know how long you have been off your prescribed denial, but for me it´s been six years. Every day I get a little stronger, and then it gets harder, and then I get a little stronger, but then it gets harder again. There´s been times when I wished that it´d all get easier, and that´s when I´d stare at the blue pill on my shelf, and fantasize about a life without burden. That´s also when I remember that there´s nobody coming to save me, and that I am the one I´ve been waiting for. Victims don´t build the world they want to live in. Leaders do that. So what´s it going to be?

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

Bruce Lee