The Matrix

The Matrix rocks. Fullstop. Plus another fullstop. That's how good it is. No can say anything else about the movie except that it rocks. Or rOxoRs! Or Rox. Whatever; it is the best show of the last decade, maybe even in the last millenium.

Maybe I exaggerate but certainly it is undoubtedly a movie which appeals on so many levels and discusses so many things. It also helps that the heroes are cool dudes.

I totally am infatuated by Morpheus's sunnies. Freaking gravity defying shades. Awesome.


I am coolness personifed. My shades are coolio. Even the sofa is cool.

But the reaons for loving the movie goes way beyond the beautiful poetry in motion set up on the movie screen, what with the flowing fight sequences with the use of CGI. No it is the themes that the Wachowski brudders have delved into.

Lemme just rattle off a few themes of great signficance - existentialism, religion, humanism utilitarianism, relativism vs objectivism and metaphysics. Mind boggling isn't it? And this is just the first movie. (granted the other two never rose to the same dizzyingly powerful heights of the first installment)

But the one thing that has been bugging me ever since I read Mark Rowland's Everything I Know I Learned From TV, which is really a pop philp book, I keep going back to that one scene which has Cypher played by Joe Pantoliano eating steak with Agent Smith. The Judas-like character remarks as he chomps down the steak.

"You know, I know that this steak doesn't exist. I know when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, do you know what I've realised?"

"Ignorance is bliss."

Interesting isn't it? Would you be happier ignorant and just to feel happy or to actually be doing something even if it may not bring happiness?

Rowland pointed out in his book that for many of us moderns, happiness is a feeling. When for example, we buy the latest iPod, we are happy. We touch the metallic surface, gaze upon the shiny gleaming screen surface, listen to the pure quality of sound and we are happy.

Or we are happy if let's say we win the lottery. A million bloody bucks. We can use the money to buy stuff that we like or want. Fulfilling these cravings, we become happy. At least for a fleeting moment, until the next bad streak of luck hits us. Or we lose that iPod we just bought. Then feelings of anger, frustration and irritation build up and we lose our happiness.

Like Cypher, most of us want to feel happy. Ignorance, as he aptly puts it, is bliss. As long as we feel happy, we are happy. It matters little that it is all in the mind. In fact, that is the beauty of the whole Matrix project. The humans in there can feel happy. They can feel sad too but for Cypher's case, he will deal with the devil (Agent Smith) if he gets to be happy i.e a movie star. He hates the real existence of life. Dressed in crummy ugly clothes, he has to put up with Morpheus the captain of the ship, who he constantly wants to undermine. He is also unable to touch his heart's desire, Trinity, thereby adding to his frustration and feelings of unhapiness.

Of course the movie is slanted to persuade the audience to sympathise with Neo and his gang of freedom fighters. But ask yourself, would you rather be in a state of happiness all your life? What if there is a machine that can put your mind in a state of constant happiness? Or at least make it such that you always think everything goes the right way for you?

Or would you rather live the life of a normal man or woman who keeps having to face disappointments and suffering. Sure some people would say that it is the disappointments that make the moments of happiness much more sweeter. But come on, we all know that disappointments and happinesss somehow provoke much stronger feelings than happiness. And feelings of frustration linger much longer than joyous feeling.

Given the premise that happiness is a feeling, I think it would be difficult to argue against wanting to hook up to such a machine. After all, we all want happiness right?

Very few people would reject the machine and that is evident from the movie too. Most people are still enslaved by the machine and many reject the real world because they are happy slaves.

But yet we find a colony of humans who reject the notion of the happiness machine. They embrace the drudgery of real living. That I will attempt to answer in the next post.

Over the weekend, this group which I am voluteering in had a little election/leadership renewal thing going on. It was all very jolly and as with most volunteer groups I have been in, people were just unwilling to step up and assume the mantle and responsibility of leadership.

This time round was no different. Getting people to take over the previous batch of leaders was excruciatingly difficult. The new leaders, it seemed to me, did not seem too keen on taking up the leadership positions. And in their thank you speeches, alluded to being sabohed. Of course they said it with a smile but one can't but detect as sense of resentment and reluctance in taking up the post.

Not the best way to start your term in charge of a group, which I reckon to be doing some real good. Of course I would, otherwise why would I join it if not?

But is reluctance to lead necessarily a bad thing for the group?

Well, for one, it means that members in the group are not ready to take ownership of the group. I suppose if I do care about the group, I would want to make sure that it goes in the right direction, or at least my direction, which I deem to be good.

In the long run, this can't be a good thing. If the people in the group are not bothered about the group's direction and vision, and merely content to be spectators rather than spec-actors (heh) - active participants in the drama unfolding before their eyes - then the group is going to end up in the dumps. Nonchalance breeds apathy.

I doubt the group has reached that stage. People within the group still care a lot about what happens to it. But the thing is this group of people are not exactly erm young anymore. And this group needs to reach out to the youth, which is its primary objective. But there is the very real possibility that the older group of leaders will have to fade out of the scene very soon. Who is left? Young, nonchalant people who are too new to the group to ensure that the group continues.

Such is the importance of constant leadership renewal. And it needs to take place at regular intervals. If it does not, the group will surely wither and die.

On the other hand, reluctance to take up the leadership positions may also mean that those who take it up are the right people. These people rightly see the positions of leadership to be ones of great responsibility and importance, hence the need to treat such positions with great reverance. It is after all keeping together a group which does good work for society.

I happen to be one of those young nonchalant young person who was inducted into one of the leadership positions. It happened all quite suddenly. I was asked by one of the leaders to help out with a project for the group. Namely, setting up and maintaining a blog for the group.

But now I am to attend monthly meetings and group activities. I hardly think I am prepared for those at this point of time. See my work takes up chunks of my time. It's not that it takes up 20 hours a day, but it's irregular. Sometimes I spend 12 hours at work, sometimes 15, sometimes 8. So I cannot promise the group that I will be there all the time.

Still I said yes to that position because I think I care enough for this group, although I've only been in it and sporadically attending their activities for a year now.

In anycase, it was one of their teas that inspired this blog. Woopee. For me, Not that people actually read this anyway.

I love kueh salat. Especially the green part of the kueh. It's soft and, if made well, full of sweet coconutty juicyness. The white bit doesn't impress me as much. It's sorta sticky and salty at the same time. Ack

This blog was inspired last weekend, when I had kueh salat at a gathering of a group I am volunteering my time with. SInce this is my first post, I'll keep it short 'cos first and foremost, I want to see the layout of the page!

What the hell does kueh salat have to do with the starting of a blog? Well, check the next post for more.