THE MECHANISMS OF THE MATRIX
10 AUGUST 2022 (22 MIN READ)
In the mind-boggling, yet fascinating movie, The Matrix, the film makes the argument that reality as we know it is a simulated set of code that gets fed into our consciousness, to make us believe that what we are experiencing is reality. Although the film is science fiction and this concept may sound far-fetched, it can be explained in a literal way that will shake you to your core and make you reconsider your perception of reality. Some believe that reality is quite literally this simulated code, where all physicality is merely a stream of energy connected to some sort of energetic source. I do not have the knowledge in quantum physics to defend or speak to this argument, but what I can speak to on a very literal level is something else: all life comes down to is our perception of it; thus, whoever controls our perception of reality, controls our experience of life. And “The Matrix” is believing that the fabricated and manipulated perceptions created by powerful industries are reality. So, in essence, breaking out of the matrix involves understanding what false perceptions you have been led to believe about life and recognizing the truth. To help you go about this awakening process, I will dive into what I believe are the five most important components of the matrix that you need to wake up to: the illusory I, the mainstream media, the education system, the “health” industry, and the political system.
Understanding how you have been manipulated to believe lies about every single one of these categories will not only shock you deeply, but it will also wake you up to the beauty that exists on the other side.
THE ILLUSORY "I"
The more attachments we have to components of our identity, the more we not only separate ourselves from the collective “we” of humanity, but also the more we open ourselves up to be manipulated by the mechanisms of the matrix. In terms of separating ourselves from the oneness of reality—which is the fact that we all stem from the same creator and experience the same consciousness if we remove our stored emotions and analytical thinking—the best way to do it is to identify as labels that separate us from the shared experience of life. And no, I am not instructing you to not be able to understand you have a certain skin color, sexual preference, nationality, or specific political beliefs, but what I am going to argue is the problem of attaching to those things so heavily. For instance, I used to walk around intensely attached to the belief that I was a Latino man who was a hard-core Democrat. But within those entrenched beliefs surrounding my identity, I was much more open to attract programming that made me dislike people of opposite identities, and create victim ideologies about how my identity would lead to a certain life experience. This looked like me only reading sources that aligned with that identity, such as left-leaning publications that convinced me that people would frequently discriminate against me because of my race and anyone who aligned with any other political beliefs was a hateful bigot. Because of this downloaded programming that was able to occur due to my entrenchment towards an identity, I started to immediately despise anyone who was not a Democrat and thought that any moment of unkindness perpetrated by them was because of my race.
Although this reality seems familiar to so many, this is no way to live, as our attachment to these identities is what disallows us to create discernment. What I mean by this is that when we allow labels of identity to define us, we cannot think of any way to perceive life outside of them, which makes us more susceptible to only believing information that validates our experience inside our own box of identity. This creates resistance inside of us to any information that might speak to something outside of our direct experience, even if that information holds the truth. This makes the skill of discernment difficult, which is the ability to go through information that speaks to different experiences of life and finding the truth, although that truth may often go against our direct experience. People that run different forms of media understand this collective lack of discernment caused by attachments to identity and capitalize off of it by creating a groupthink effect, where their information only speaks one sort of direct experience and discredits, as well as villainizes, any other stream of information that speaks to another experience. Unfortunately, most of us are at the mercy of these media organizations, as their information, for the most part, dictates how we perceive the world around us. And if the proliferation of their information depends on their readers not being able to see an experience of life outside of it, then the only way out, where we can be in charge of our own perceptions, is to be able to feel and understand a world outside of our identity. This may sound impossible, so how in the world can this be accomplished? In short, you must become the awareness that is experiencing life, and detach from the egotistical mechanisms of the “I,” that create attachments to identities that make you feel like it’s you versus the world.
Within your mind, there’s the voice that latches on to every experience and makes it feel deeply personal, such as getting romantically rejected and thinking about the emotional pain in a way that describes it as, “why me?” or, “how could something so horrible be happening to me?” In essence, this is the painful evil created by the illusory “I” that believes that everything that is happening to you is really about you, and everything that goes against this notion is stupid. On the other hand, using awareness, the same situation can be felt completely differently. While you may still feel the sting of the romantic rejection, you can observe it in your mind as a feeling that your human body is having, and use the awareness to create compassion for your human suffering, without going down the rabbit hole of all the victim-based self-deprecating thoughts. As you can see, awareness can be used to healthily detach from the egoistic attachment to human experiences and give room for a more realistic assessment of the situation. The truth is, although it may be strange to think about, we are all just awareness—if we allow ourselves to be. We can always take a step back in our minds from what’s going on inside or outside our bodies, and observe it as just that, without all the stories created by the egoistic “I.” For instance, noticing that your body is tired, instead of feeling tired and creating stories about why that is the case and how you have failed yourself. In all cases, when presented with an emotionally triggering situation, using awareness will always reduce the amount of human suffering and give room for a more rational understanding of what’s actually happening. The problem is that we are all victims to the hold of the addictive thought patterns of the illusory “I.” But whenever it comes, we have to move back to the awareness. This habit will take a while to become automatic, but once it does, you will be set free.
You will be set free because the attachments of the “I” give room for mental stories that match its identity. And when you are used to always repeating the same stories and paying attention to the same narratives from outside sources that validate the “I,” then you will be unable to perceive a world that goes outside these stories, and this reality is where the truth lies, away from the matrix of false perceptions. When you become the awareness, you not only start breaking free from your own self-delusions that keep you imprisoned in pain, but you also start to recognize that a lot of the information you have been consuming has been filled with lies as well, and you only believed them because they validated the stories you were telling yourself. Once you separate yourself from these repeated stories of self, and become the person observing those stories, you start to notice which stories are telling the truth. And the biggest truthful story you will begin to believe wholeheartedly is that we are all one. We are all just awareness watching ourselves have a human experience—if we allow ourselves to be. And that allowance is dependent on detaching from the false stories created by the illusory “I.” When you live by this truth, you will start to feel repulsed by any thinking that separates us from this oneness. Unfortunately, most thinking in the world creates this separation, which is reflective of how many of us still live our lives feeding off the matrix of independent separation from oneness.
THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
Although school fed us a whole bunch of bullshit that wasted our time, there are a couple key elements of programming that heavily contribute to our partaking in the matrix. First on the list is the fact that if we did not take the educational programming we were taught and immediately believe it all without questioning it, then we not only were graded as failures, but we were seen as failures, or outcasts, who were bad for society. In other words, if we did not take what we were being taught as God’s word that was not worthy of any doubt, then we were immediately thrown into the outcast category by our teachers, peers, and parents. Thus, out of fear, to not seem strange or crazy to those around us, we learned to not question the “official” information we were being taught to believe, and instead, we opted to not only believe it fully, but to memorize every piece in its entirety so we could fit in better with those around us. And no, I’m not advocating for young Jimmy to yell at the teacher that 2+2=5, but I am criticizing the fact that Jimmy can’t question the validity or the intention of the sources he is consuming in his humanities classes, but rather has to settle for memorizing it all so he won’t fail a test. This may seem trivial to you, but how we learn to perceive the world as a kid basically dictates how we perceive it as an adult. Because of this reality, in our adult life, since we have developed the habit to automatically trust the information we “should” be trusting because everyone else is and we do not want to seem crazy if we doubt it, we learn to refuse to question the popular information that is being presented to us out of fear that we will fail or become a failure in some manner. In turn, we do not question the information that is being presented to us, leading us to believe anything the popular consensus comes with, which results in our perceptions of life being controlled by those who dictate what is popular to believe. And if I learned anything over the past couple of years, it’s that the information we are being fed to believe by those who create the popular agendas is complete and utter bullshit to the highest degree.
The key behavioral pattern that allowed me to escape this automatic habit of believing what I “should” believe is removing the fear that if I do not believe something that everyone is believing, then I am a failure. In truth, if you believe what everyone else is believing, you are a sheep. While everyone else follows the herd, you have the chance to take a step back and run the fuck away, developing your own belief system, where you are in charge of what beliefs create your perception of reality, not those around you. Drop the fear of fitting in, failing, or being seen as crazy for distancing yourself from the herd, and you will free your mind from the matrix of false beliefs.
But who exactly is behind most of these highly contagious, false beliefs?
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
In society, the mainstream media replaces the teachers we had in school, in the sense that we are manipulated to believe that everything they say is 100% accurate and that we should never question anything they say, or else we risk being ridiculed and seen as crazy. Showcasing this concerning sentiment, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people were getting their social media accounts banned when they spoke out against the consensus of information coming from the mainstream media. Even though, as a free speech absolutist, this was bad enough already to see, making matters even worse, people were getting their accounts banned over things that ended becoming true as the scientific consensus developed. For example, doctors were getting their accounts banned for saying things like how the vaccine may help in reducing symptoms but would not affect transmissibility over time, or how the vaccine could lead to heart issues in young men. These issues are now accepted by the mainstream media, so people can talk freely about them on mainstream platforms, but back when the mainstream media kept them in the dark to push a certain agenda, people were not only ridiculed for questioning their information, but they were banned from even speaking about it. It’s as if the science teacher in high school wrote E=MC on the board, and you raised your hand and told them there should be a squared symbol over the C, as the equation would not be entirely true without it, but they met your correct questioning with permanently kicking you out of the class and sending you to the principal’s office. This is how we are currently being gaslighted by the mainstream media and the platforms that push their agendas. But how exactly does the mainstream media get away with this? And how do they fool so many people into treating their words as God’s words?
Although our mental conditioning of not questioning the consensus of information being presented to us plays a huge role, there are three other key ways in which the mainstream media manages to hijack our minds: compliance through fear, biased political influence, and a demonization of conflicting information through political polarization. When you are afraid, which puts you into a high state of anxiety, your prefrontal cortex basically stops working. And this part of your brain is responsible for reason and logic. So, if media sources trigger you with fear off the bat, which they almost always do, your ability to reason and question the information will severely weaken, making you much more likely to immediately believe every word in front of you. Additionally, fear is also an incredibly addictive emotion, making you want to turn on the news every night, or refresh their page on your phone often to get that hit of fear. Therefore, not only is manipulated fear making you more likely to not question the information being presented to you, but it’s also making you want to keep coming back for more, creating a double-edged sword that is repeatedly destroying your brain and your chance at finding any ounce of truth.
Next, in terms of biased political influence, each of the mainstream news channels, such as CNN or Fox, not only has owners with intense political affiliations, but the company itself is hellbent on a mission to keep a specific political party in office at all costs. And what happens when your mission is to keep a political party in office? You manipulate objective data in a subjective manner that makes one party seem amazing, and the other seem like evil. The problem with this popular way of communicating information is that it leads to constant lies. How can you tell the truth if said truth could damage your mission of keeping one political party in the most favorable light possible? You simply cannot. This unfortunate reality segues nicely into the last category: condemning any opposing information as “evil” and “problematic.” Due to the deeply politically polarized era we find ourselves in, most people who identify with one party do not identify with it because they believe in it or love it, but rather because they hate the other side so much. The media understands this reality well, so they use it to their advantage by immediately labeling any opposing information to theirs as “coming from the other evil side,” which makes those who identify with one side immediately discredit the opposing, questioning information. However, the whole point of having opposing sides is that they can point out the errors rooted in biases in each other’s information, so that they can find some truth in the middle ground. But when each side immediately scoffs at each other’s rightful questioning, what each side is left with is immediately believing a crop of biased bullshit. And then these beliefs inform their perceptions of reality, creating two realities we are currently living in: those who solely consume the mainstream media and those who choose not to. Or, those who live in the matrix and those who don’t.
By all means, if you choose to believe everything coming out from the mainstream media, then go ahead, but would you rather live in a world of lies, or in a world of possibility, where you have some chance of finding the truth?
THE WAR ON YOUR HEALTH
Not only have I been the recipient of terrible mental health care that almost killed me, but I also watched my mother rapidly die in a hospital that did nothing but make the situation aggressively worse. The stories of both experiences reveal key truths about the health industry that should make us believe that the health industry really has nothing to do with healing, but rather only focuses on fixing surface-level issues aggressively, without paying any attention to the things that caused it, making matters worse for people a lot of the time. In my experience with mental health care, after a brief 45-minute chat with a psychiatrist, I was handed antidepressants. When I came back complaining about an inability to focus, I was handed Adderall. When I came back complaining about anxiety, I was handed Klonopin, a cousin of Xanax. When I came back complaining about feeling more depressed, I was handed a super high dose of antidepressants. When I came back exclaiming I was deeply suicidal, I was gaslighted to believe I was overthinking things. When I chose not to come back, get off the meds, and seek spiritual aid, my road to peace and true, not artificial, happiness officially began. During the time of suicidal thoughts caused by the high anti-depressant dose, literally every single thought I had for a week was to kill myself. I do not know what guided me to not do that, but I am deeply thankful for that mysterious guiding force.
For those who argue that it’s unfair to blame one bad psychiatrist for the whole industry, most people I know have had similar experiences with psychiatrists as I did. Although some may benefit from the medications, none have been invited to take an internal journey to figure out the traumatic thought patterns that are causing their mental illnesses. And when you ignore the trauma through swallowing pills, it will only resurface in a much more drastic, deeply painful way, affecting your life forever. But what overlying truth does this reveal about the thesis of the healthcare industry? That we are simple beings who just require one chemical alteration to fix everything going on inside of us. It’s as if we are malfunctioning robots who just needed an altered line of code to make things better again. Although some people may be “fixed” by this strategy, most are left with the underlying issues that caused the disease left at bay, waiting for it to pop back up again in a more drastic manner. Even deeper than this, the “medicine” that doctors believe is God’s silver bullet to fix us, is created by evil pharmaceutical industries fixated on making profits at all costs, even if that means killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. If you think I’m overreacting or being unfair, then consider the fact that opioids are the leading cause of death in Americans under the age of 50. Or the fact that pharmaceutical companies worldwide, in total, stand to make over a trillion dollars each year. Just like the mainstream media dictates the perceptions of the consensus to influence the political reality they want to create. For the medical system, the pharmaceutical industry has hijacked any conception of healing in medical education, manipulating the perceptions of doctors to believe that the answer to helping people lies in dangerous drugs, creating the current reality of the healthcare system that we believe is here to heal us, but in reality, just exists to make heaps of money for a select group of evil people. If you thought drug cartels in South America were bad, then you have not really sat with the biggest drug cartel in the history of humanity that’s right in front of our eyes: Big Pharma. But what the fuck does this all have to do with the matrix?
As has been emphasized throughout this piece, the matrix is the creation of false beliefs by powerful people to hijack your perceptions, which then dictate how you experience life. And a big piece of this is a healthcare industry that has manipulated you to believe that they are the silver bullet to a healthy life. This perception makes you think that you can eat all the terrible food you want, never exercise, be angry all the time, never take care of your anxiety, because the medical industry will always be there to fix you. Not only does this lead to a deeply unhealthy lifestyle, but it also leads to an unwavering belief in the medical process once you need to be fixed. Although the latter may not seem like a problem, before you make up your mind about that, consider the story of my mother. My mother entered the hospital with bad lung issues that were giving her a lot of trouble. The hospital quickly figured out that she had some form of aggressive cancer that was spreading to her lungs, but they could not figure out where it stemmed from, which made them unable to come up with a treatment plan quickly. While they tried to figure out what was going on, they gave her incredibly high doses of antibiotics, and a good amount of opioids on a consistent basis. Furthermore, they told her to just get as many calories as possible to give her body energy, handing her calorific pre-made shakes loaded with horrible ingredients, such as seed oils, GMO whey protein, and corn syrups, as well as allowing her to load up on sugary desserts. Although this may seem like any good day at the hospital, my eyebrows were raised, while my heart was deeply broken. Having woken up to the mechanisms of the matrix at a young age, I had spent years researching what health really is outside of the mainstream consensus, and how one can actually go about healing the body. And everything I was witnessing during my mother’s quick, yet unfortunate stint at the hospital was the complete opposite of healing. It was killing.
Combining high doses of antibiotics with opioids destroys all the beneficial components of the gut, which controls your immune system. Thus, by loading up on these toxic “healing” strategies, you render the human immune system completely useless. Making matters worse, most of our beneficial neurotransmitters are produced in the gut, making the “medicine” wipe out the production of these, resulting in a defeated mind when it needs to be the most resilient to heal the body. If things couldn’t get worse, the food she was instructed to consume contained the most inflammatory ingredients known to man: omega-6 trans fats and processed sugars. Additionally, since she was dealing with lung issues, the fact that she was given whey protein and dairy-filled foods still boggles my mind as lactose creates phlegm in the body, which tends to stick to your lungs. If there was one thing I learned during my years of research, it was that what you eat dictates your levels of health, and everything she was given as “fuel,” disguised by the vastly misunderstood word “calories,” was the most unhealthy food she could have possibly been given, especially when she needed to fight inflammation in the body at all costs. Why I’m saying all this is that I could sit here and be angry at my parents for not listening to my concerns or at the doctors who failed miserably. But I can’t be mad at them, because it is the fault of the medical matrix society finds itself in. All doctors learn about in their education is what drugs heal what, instead of what actually heals the body and prevents disease. Reflecting this horrible reality is the fact that doctors receive no genuine nutritional training at all in their education. And if the people who are in charge of taking care of us when we are sick do not know jack shit about healing the body, then how can we be mad at them when they kill millions of us a year? We have to be mad at the system that is breaking us, not the victims who are taking the bait.
The key to breaking free of this awful false reality is to understand that we are in charge of our own health. We have to prevent disease in ourselves. We have to know deep down inside that pills are not made to save us from living shitty, unhealthy lives. We cannot ignore the fact that the medical industry is designed to profit off of sick people through harmful pharmaceuticals. If you are now thinking, “Then where the hell do I go and figure out if I am sick? Or to heal myself?” A whole, beautiful world of healing exists outside of the medical industry, such as functional medicine, holistic healing, somatic experiencing, and a new, intriguing frontier of psychedelics as the key to mental healing. All of these ventures of healing the mind and body exist outside of the matrix, and I promise they will open new doors to experiencing a much better life. Oh, and guess what, they won’t kill you when you need help.
THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
Contrary to what we all love to believe, in the United States, Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. Yes, they both have their good and bad sides when it comes to their proposed policies, but they are merely a cover for the agendas of big corporations and wealthy bloodlines. No matter who is in office, those in power beyond politics will get their way and control the actions of politicians through their high donations and historical sway. Without getting too conspiratorial, which I have plenty of thoughts behind, consider the hold of the Republican party by organizations such as the NRA as an example, or the Koch brothers. All political parties do is act as a cover for the agendas of those who dictate what’s going on behind the scenes, which most people do not see and therefore blame politicians for the problems of the world, and then start hating each other for voting for the politicians who they think are most at fault. If we are always busy blaming the puppets and fighting each other, then guess what we’re not doing? Coming together and finding out who exactly is behind the scenes pulling strings, and then fighting them to restore peace and unity in society. Instead, we are stuck in this manipulated perceptive state that those at the bottom of the food chain are completely at fault for what is happening upstairs. And the more we find ourselves standing on one side of the political aisle, the more we are going to be confronted with biased information that is designed to make us hate the opposing side and blame them for everything that is going wrong in our lives, keeping us stuck in the rat race that those above us want us to be stuck in, so they can keep getting away with pulling the strings under the stage without anyone noticing.
ONE LAST THOUGHT
You may be wondering which of these five avenues of the matrix holds the most power over us. To answer that question, I leave you with this masterful quote by George Orwell, the author of 1984:
“If you want to know who rules over you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.”
(Hint: the answer rhymes with big karma).
