Days 27, 28, 29 - finally digesting the red pill

Probably best to start with a full scene from The Matrix, constantly referred to over the past 3 days:

Morpheus: I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole?

Neo: You could say that.

Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he's expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?

Neo: No.

Morpheus: Why not?

Neo: 'Cause I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind -- driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Neo: The Matrix?

Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? (Neo nods his head.)

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember - all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

Neo takes the red pill.

And thus concluded the Landmark Forum.

It's probably still a bit early to fully assess Landmark. I only left the last of 30 odd hours of large scale introspection, self analysis and group human awareness an hour ago.

But I wanted to fess up a bit of detail as I haven't blogged for a few days and haven’t been sleeping well recently.

I have the time.

Here it is in a nutshell: everything we are is a result of stories we have told ourselves about what actually happened in our lives. And every mannerism and idiosyncrasy, every charming feature, enduring principal, filthy habit and blood curdling secret we have is a direct result of all the events, circumstances and situations we have experienced.

So what did I want to get out of the Landmark Forum?

Well, I wanted to know if I am doing the right thing. Essentially ignoring a return to a conventional career in aid of following my path and seeing where it leads. And I wanted to know if that pathway was going to lead me to where I want to go.

I got that.

The answer is a simple, and slightly dismissive 'yes - I am doing the right thing'.

But here's the thing: it doesn't actually matter.

Pause. Let that cook in the silence.

It doesn't matter.

Because it's meaningless. It doesn't actually exist. i.e. Whatever / wherever I hope it might lead to is just a fanciful, fantastical and downright ridiculous barometer of success that I have created as a result of all the things that have happened and things I have been told.

You see, where I think the pathway may lead doesn't actually exist. I may achieve some of my dreams. But I won't achieve these in the future. Because when I get there and achieve those dreams it will be now, not then. And then it will instantly be in the past, and if there is one thing less significant or real than the future and the present, it's the past.

My future is in my hands, right now.

Because the only form of control I have over my future is what I am doing right now - at this precise moment.

If you are not enjoying right now, you won't enjoy whatever the future sends you.

The parallels with The Matrix are clear.

People convince themselves they are happy. They create an existence, via the stories they tell themselves, the standards they set, and a certain level of application to this 'reality' delivers a modicum of stability and prosperity which, according to the conventional criteria used to equate success, instils 'happiness'.

But these people, unfortunately, are not really alive. They're sort of dead.

Because they are in The Matrix. They're on the treadmill.

Because they are not helping anyone and we all need to ensure our existence, however meaningless, means something to someone (that’s what my voices are telling me).

There are moments in the Landmark Forum when I felt something... wonderful. Things that had been absent from my life for quite some time.

Compassion. Romance. Altruism.

Forgiveness on an epic scale.

There were moments that inspired. That alone in this cynical world was worth the investment.

And there was one blissful, crystal clear, spellbinding moment when I realised that it was all meaningless bullshit. Everything in life. What I want to do. What god intends for me. What my parents want me to do. What I am going to do. What I might have done. And obviously, what I have done.

How did this moment manifest? When I finally realised that I have been operating on the field of play for some time now - maybe my whole life.

I am a player.

I may not have won any major medals yet, but in this meaningless existence, so void of anything important, at least I am creating meaning, (even meaning that means something to me alone), by simply being on the field of play. Because why does it matter that something is meaningless? Just because everything is meaningless and we all are born and die with nothing, doesn’t justify doing nothing forever.

So I choose to live an existence that means something to me. And to those I surround myself with. My friends and family (i love you, by the way).

And that ain't meaningless. Not to me, or them.

And I know that How To Survive Your 20’s In One Piece will be useful and meaningful to some people. And I know it will be published and I know it will be a bestseller.

See, the risk I am living out every day is not that dangerous at all. In fact, what feels like being ‘out of the comfort zone’ is actually to float and bounce across a massive cloud of safety – safety in the knowledge that I have escaped The Matrix and am living my life.

If I still worked at the company that unceremoniously fired my ass in June 2006, and I was struck by lightning tomorrow, I know for a fact I would burn to death cursing and spitting that I wasted my last days in a mirrored tower in canary wharf at the beck and call of an evil regime running one of the biggest rackets this world has ever seen. I've seen rackets and I've seen rackets (more on rackets in the coming weeks) but surely there is no bigger cartel / racket / front than big business.

But having worked for the past few months as this blog details, and if the same bolt struck me at the same time tomorrow?

I’d fry with my fists clenched and aloft in victory, a smile on my face, published or unpublished, with nothing more than a large debt to my wonderful father keeping me from completeness on this earth.

Because my life is already happening.

Because I am not in the stands. Not in the matrix.

If there was one other thing that I wanted to get from the forum, it was final confirmation that if I carry on playing, carry on applying myself as I am doing and putting myself about on the field of play, that I can actually do what this blog promises.

And the beautiful answer, the answer that I already knew, is 'yes'.

You know why I can do it?

Because I already I am.

How do I know that?

Because I took the red pill a long time ago.

And what does that make me?

Neo.

I’m Neo.

And as we all know, Neo can do anything.

I really got that.

Writing time: zero

Manifestation: 1000%

PS: Thank you to all at Landmark Education - you do amazing work and have an awesome product. And a big thank you to every other person on the forum - thanks for putting up with my convoluted urban conflict for 3 whole days! Relativity aside, my problems pale in comparison to many people's and I got that, and wish you all the very best on the road to completion.