50 Ways to Leave the Matrix
Slip out the back Jack, make a new plan Stan, and get out in nature to feel what life must have once felt like
There’s a tug. No, more than a tug, a pull. More like an invisible chain that keeps us bound to the Matrix. It’s the conversations we have, the news we consume, the television, movies, books, music, financial planners, family, religion, and so much more. It’s everything around us — the water we swim in.
You can’t see it or put your finger on it, but it’s intoxicatingly familiar.
We can’t suddenly think that everyone around us is wrong and we’re right. We can’t abandon everything we’ve been taught about how the world works.
But then there is a quiet voice within that keeps whispering . . .
The problem is all inside your head
She said to me
The answer is easy if you
Take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To leave [the Matrix]
— Paul Simon
I have a mortgage, a family, a dog, two car payments, insurance policies. Life is busy. I have obligations. I can’t think about this stuff. I have to keep going, working toward retirement. This is what literally everyone else does. They can’t be wrong, and I can’t be right.
But then again . . . what is this voice I keep hearing?
I know . . . here it is . . . yes . . . I can see the problem for what it is: I’m going crazy, nutzoid, insane. This must be the answer. I need to see a therapist. I need a support group. I feel restless and discontent. I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but my life feels wrong.
I heard a song on the radio the other day that stuck in my head. Radio? Does anyone listen to the radio anymore? No, I think it was Pandora or Spotify or one of those.
Anyway, it went like this,
You Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
But I don’t want to leave my wife or family — they’re not the problem. I just can’t bear it anymore. I feel anxious in grocery stores, annoyed by loud noises like middle aged men in muscle cars with modified exhaust systems who feel the need to gas it at every opportunity sending shock waves of egoic gasoline powered machismo through the airwaves. Anxious dogs barking incessantly because they never get a walk or play time with their owners, advertising hitting me from everywhere.
I considered signing up for Discovery+ because I thought they might have some nice content for a change. But I’d have to pay $4.99 a month for the privilege of watching their shows with advertisements. It’s the same with Hulu.
Everyone’s talking about inflation, but then all these corporations who have reported record profits through the pandemic are raising their prices because, as they say, their costs have gone up.
And we go along with it. We buy chocolate from companies that employ slave labor because we have to have our chocolate. And coffee, and naturally produced vanilla extract. It’s easier to go chemically processed. Chicken doesn’t taste like chicken anymore so let’s pile on the flavorings (chemical flavorings).
I need to slip out the back Jack, make a new plan Stan. I need to get out in nature and feel what life must have once felt like.
Why can’t people be nicer to one another? “Why can’t we be friends?,” the band War once sang. I wonder why they named themselves that? Maybe they meant the war that goes on inside us.
We are the proverbial frogs slowly coming to a boil. But I’m feeling the heat and I want to get out. This can’t be the life we were meant for.
We came out from our mother’s womb as little miracles. Now we look to the miracle of technology and instant communications from the four corners of the world. I can Snapchat with someone in Estonia, but I don’t know my neighbor’s name or what they’re passionate about. I live a mere thirty feet away, but who are they?
I don’t mean to be coy Roy; I just need to get myself free.
So, I’m gonna’ make a new plan Stan. I don’t need to discuss much. I’m just gonna’ drop off the key Lee.
And get myself free.
I bought a piece of land in a remote location. I’m studying off-grid solar, water catchment, earthen works, gray water systems, alternative building techniques, and more.
I bought a chainsaw and watched a ton of YouTubes on safety and maintenance. I bought a bunch of tools and books on homesteading.
I found a retired builder who occasionally builds small homes and additions for friends in this remote community where I bought land. He’s taking me on as a helper so I can learn how to build foundations, frame walls and windows, roofs, and chimneys.
I met a friend who’s teaching me the chimney sweep business because he doesn’t want to do it anymore. Imagine that! Sweeping chimneys. It’s a necessary job. Someone has to do it. I can help elderlies in the area, those with disabilities, or those who just don’t want to climb on their roofs to do a dirty job.
So, one day I’m writing blogs on my laptop, publishing on a Web 3.0 platform, storing my work in the cloud while sitting by a wood stove with real wood burning in it. The next day I’m visiting an elderly couple sweeping their chimney. They send me home with a few dollars in my pocket and a bag of carrots from their winter garden.
But it’s not just the physical aspects of leaving the Matrix — the learning how to live off-grid, grow food, catch water, and live simply. As I’ve been meditating for an hour a day for years, my mind has changed. Fears that were once buried in my subconscious have bubbled to the surface and I’ve been able to see them for what they are — emotional manifestations of living in the Matrix.
I think of Mark Twain’s words: “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
But isn’t that the point of the Matrix. To keep us in fear so we’ll keep doing what we’re doing. Sacrifice our joy, our humanity, so we can work our way up the ladder, build the 401K, the Roth IRA, the Whole Life Insurance plan and one day retire in the comfort of knowing that we’ll always be provided for.
Unless and until things fall apart. Like our health, or marriage, or the stock market. Financial advisors always say to invest for the long-term because the market always goes up over time. If we invested $10,000 in the S&P index in 1990 and left it, it would be worth $220,000 today. $46,000 would give us a million. But investing in the S&P 500 means we’re supporting companies who pollute the environment, employ slave labor, and generate much of their profits through a fancy accounting term called “Externalities,” which means they don’t have to pay for all the true costs of their business because the laws are in their favor.
But we don’t question any of this because we’re in the Matrix. We believe in the Matrix. The Matrix is what everyone believes in, whether we’re a liberal or conservative, Muslim or Christian, it’s all the same. It’s one system, one method of forgetting who we are and why we’re here.
I’m going to hop on the bus Gus. I don’t need to discuss much. I’ll become a homesteader, eat food I grow, or from others in the community. I don’t need chemical fertilizers to make food grow, I just need to compost, even my poop. Poop is extremely high in nitrogen and produces a literal cesspool of bioactivity that breaks things down into actual soil we can grow stuff in.
Sometimes I find new fears bubbling to the surface. Like what the fuck have I done moving to the middle of nowhere to live like this. Have I gone mad?
Or is this feeling the Matrix wooing me back? Beckoning me to plug myself back in so I can taste the juicy virtual reality meat and be someone of “importance,” along with my new insurance policy to protect some tangible item. Not for the protection of my soul, not for my joy, not the love I share.
I’m leaving the Matrix. It feels weird at times. It used to scare me, because I wondered what my relations would think of how I’m living, what the collective, unseen, amorphous culture at large will think of me. But do I really care? Does it matter what others think? And yet, that pull, that tug, the invisible chains clinking in the background whispering to me, “Hey, do you want to try these back on?”
Hell no!
I’m breaking free. I’m leaving the Matrix by thinking and feeling differently. By valuing different things. Like joy versus my bank balance. Peacefulness over status. A feeling of community with simple-living people instead of casual friendships with people I barely know who are still stuck in the Matrix.
They’re plugged in and convinced it’s what they’re supposed to be doing. I love them all, but I no longer share the same narrative or the same values. I bless and release those who cannot understand. I lost a close family member who doesn’t get me. It hurts at times, but I can’t go back.
I’m slipping out the back, dropping off the keys, getting on the bus, and gettin’ myself free.