Namesake - Life is Beautiful
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Architect
Hello, Neo
Who are you?
I am the Architect. I created the Matrix. I've been waiting for you.You have many questions. Though the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand and some you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant
Why am I here?
Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix.You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I've been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected and thus not beyond a measure of control, which has led you, inexorably... here
You haven't answered my question
Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others
<Others? How many? What others?>
The Matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one intergral anomaly to the emergence of the next. In which case, this is the sixth version
<Five before me? He's lying. Bullshit>
There are only two possible explanations. Either no one told me... or no one knows
Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the anomaly is systemic, creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations
<You can't control me! I'm gonna smash you to bits! I'm gonna fucking kill you! You can't make me do anything. You old, white prick!>
Choice. The problem is choice
The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art. Flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being.Thus, I redesigned it based on your history, to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind. Or perhaps, a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, intuitive program initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the Matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother
The Oracle
Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly ninety nine percent of test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level. While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if left unchecked, might threaten the system itself. Ergo, those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked would constitute an escalating probability of disaster
This is about Zion
You are here because Zion is about to be destroyed. It's every living inhabitant terminated, its entire existence eradicated
Bullshit
<Bullshit>
Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it. The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry reinserting the prime program. After which you will be required to select from the Matrix twenty three individuals, sixteen female, seven male, to rebuild Zion. Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash killing everyone connected to the Matrix which coupled with the extermination of Zion will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race
You won't let it happen. You can't. You need human beings to survive
There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility for the death of every human being in this world. It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication, a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experience this in a general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis love
Trinity!
Apropos, she entered the Matrix to save your life at the cost of her own
No
Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed and the anomaly revealed as both beginning and end. There are two doors. The doors to your right leads to the source and the salvation of Zion. The door to your left leads back to the Matrix, to her and the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you are going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion designed specifically to overwhelm logic and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple and obvious truth. She is going to die and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness
If I were you, I would hope that we don't meet again
We won't
Friday, September 24, 2010
Alone
When I was 16, I asked a classmate back in school about Christianity. He said he only goes to Church for Christmas. We talked about heaven and hell amongst other things. I don't remember the rest of the conversation except that he seem excited going to hell. Thats where most of his friends will be he explained. That's where the party is.
"One of my new housemates, Stacy, wants to write a story about an astronaut. In his story the astronaut is wearing a suit that keeps him alive by recycling his fluids. In the story the astronaut is working on a space station when an accident takes place, and he is cast into space to orbit the earth, to spend the rest of his life circling the globe. Stacy says this story is how he imagines hell, a place where a person is completely alone, without others and without God.
After Stacy told me about his story, I kept seeing it in my mind. I thought about it before I went to sleep at night. I imagined myself looking out my little bubble helmet at blue earth, reaching toward it, closing it between my puffy white space-suit fingers, wondering if my friends were still there. In my imagination I would call to them, yell for them, but the sound would only come back loud within my helmet. Through the years my hair would grow long in my helmet and gather around my forehead and fall across my eyes. Because of my helmet I would not be able to touch my face with my hands to move my hair out of my eyes, so my view of earth, slowly, over the first two years, would dim to only a thin light through a curtain of thatch and beard.
I would lay there in bed thinking about Stacy's story, putting myself out there in the black. And there came a time, in space, when I could not tell whether I was awake or asleep. All my thoughts mingled together because I had no people to remind me what was real and what was not real. I would punch myself in the side to feel pain, and this way I could be relatively sure I was not dreaming. Within ten years I was beginning to breathe heavy through my hair and my beard as they were pressing tough against my face and had begun to curl into my mouth and up my nose. In space, I forgot that I was human. I did not know whether I was a ghost or an apparition or a demon thing.
After I thought about Stacy's story, I lay there in bed and wanted to be touched, wanted to be talked to. I had the terrifying thought that something like that might happen to me. I thought it was just a terrible story, a painful and ugly story. Stacy had delivered as accurate a description of a hell as could be calculated. And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions, not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other human beings at all. "
Blue Like Jazz, 171" — Donald Miller
My friends. Hell is no party, its eternal seperation. This scares me. What if I'm wrong. What if there's nothing after death. What if everything Jesus said is nonsense? We both lose.
What if Jesus is who He said he is? I win, you still lose.
"One of my new housemates, Stacy, wants to write a story about an astronaut. In his story the astronaut is wearing a suit that keeps him alive by recycling his fluids. In the story the astronaut is working on a space station when an accident takes place, and he is cast into space to orbit the earth, to spend the rest of his life circling the globe. Stacy says this story is how he imagines hell, a place where a person is completely alone, without others and without God.
After Stacy told me about his story, I kept seeing it in my mind. I thought about it before I went to sleep at night. I imagined myself looking out my little bubble helmet at blue earth, reaching toward it, closing it between my puffy white space-suit fingers, wondering if my friends were still there. In my imagination I would call to them, yell for them, but the sound would only come back loud within my helmet. Through the years my hair would grow long in my helmet and gather around my forehead and fall across my eyes. Because of my helmet I would not be able to touch my face with my hands to move my hair out of my eyes, so my view of earth, slowly, over the first two years, would dim to only a thin light through a curtain of thatch and beard.
I would lay there in bed thinking about Stacy's story, putting myself out there in the black. And there came a time, in space, when I could not tell whether I was awake or asleep. All my thoughts mingled together because I had no people to remind me what was real and what was not real. I would punch myself in the side to feel pain, and this way I could be relatively sure I was not dreaming. Within ten years I was beginning to breathe heavy through my hair and my beard as they were pressing tough against my face and had begun to curl into my mouth and up my nose. In space, I forgot that I was human. I did not know whether I was a ghost or an apparition or a demon thing.
After I thought about Stacy's story, I lay there in bed and wanted to be touched, wanted to be talked to. I had the terrifying thought that something like that might happen to me. I thought it was just a terrible story, a painful and ugly story. Stacy had delivered as accurate a description of a hell as could be calculated. And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions, not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other human beings at all. "
Blue Like Jazz, 171" — Donald Miller
My friends. Hell is no party, its eternal seperation. This scares me. What if I'm wrong. What if there's nothing after death. What if everything Jesus said is nonsense? We both lose.
What if Jesus is who He said he is? I win, you still lose.
Blue Like Jazz
"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."
— Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality)
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."
— Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality)
Gossip
A women was gossiping with a friend about a men she hardly knew. I know none of you have ever done this. That night she had a dream. A great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O'Rourke. She told him the whole thing.
"Is gossiping a sin?" she asked the old man.
"Was that the hand of God Almighty pointing a finger at me? Should I be asking your absolution, Father?"
"Tell me, have I done something wrong?"
"Yes" Father O'Rourke answered her.
"Yes, you ignorant, badly brought up female. You have borne false witness against your neighbor.You have played fast and loose with his reputation and you should be heartily ashamed!"
So the women said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness
"Not so fast," says O'Rourke
"I want you to go home. Take a pillow up on your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me."
So the women went home, took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof and stabbed the pillow.
Then she went back to the old parish priest an instructed.
"Did you gut the pillow with a knife?" he says.
"Yes, Father."
"And what was the result?"
"Feathers," she said.
"Feathers," he repeated.
"Feathers everwhere, Father"
"Now, I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind"
"Well." she said, "it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over".
"And that," said Father O'Rourke, "is GOSSIP!"
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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