Where is the purpose?
Instead of a population residing within rows of gelatinous vats filled with a pink nutritional serum that sustains the corporeal well-being, we have a population that resides in the pacific confines of more personalized mausoleums adorned with plush material luxury and sealed with empty figments of desire.
The matrix is already here. It is the media. The newspapers. The magazines. The TV. The computer. The internet. The smartphones. All routinely bombarding our attention with messages. All programs of thought. All robbing us of a critical consciousness. Our ability to be for and of our being.
Slowly, surely, we have lost ourselves.
William Dare 
I identify with this sentiment and the message as a whole, but would you agree that there are also a (possibly growing and always present) number of independent and critical thinkers out there who are able to remain – through acute awareness of their interaction with the ‘system’ and their absorption by it – independent of it? Furthermore, what of utilizing ‘the system’ to expand our world view, connect with others (as I am doing now), and increasing one’s own knowledge of the world and possibly self, thereby augmenting their ‘real world’ operations and propensity for critical consciousness?
I feel as if by the very essence of awareness a being can become independent of it’s environment. At least in thought. The ‘simple’ act of recognizing that I am ‘plugged in’ sets me apart, and then it becomes a choice to be absorbed or to remain independent while simultaneously interacting. I think that through this radical awareness our critical consciousness and the ability to be for and of being is preserved.
The way in which we interact with the world is changing, but I feel as if it hasn’t taken anything away from the way in which I operate as a being that exists and strives for authenticity.
Let me know what you think, i’m not versed on “critical consciousness.”
Great thoughts, and great blog!
Hey Aaron- I appreciate it and I’m glad you enjoy it. I really like your response to the post. Here are my thoughts:
I may be wrong, but I’ve always held that one cannot stay within and move without. So long as we reside and participate in the language games characterizing the system, a part of us will internally endorse the game and whatever ideology that represents. I like to think that our awareness alone grants a certain degree of transcendental freedom and individuality, but being aware of the chains doesn’t mean they go away, nor does it mean that they can going away.
Whenever I think about freedom and constraints and deception I always like to entertain thought experiments with people and rooms. If a person is an unlocked room, and they don’t know they can leave, are they free? If the room is locked and they don’t know they can leave, are they free? If the room is unlocked and they believe they can leave, but choose not to, are they free? If the room is locked and they think they can leave but choose not to, are they free? It all goes back to this: if you believe you’re free, there is no hope for escape. The delusion of freedom.
Trust me when I say that my life’s pursuit is to develop a critical consciousness that is able to creatively engage reality for itself through reflection and action. The resolute intention of my being is to dispel self-deception’s contrivances and fully possess a state of being that reflects the possibilities of the now. Perhaps meditation is a tool for opening this portal of awareness? Creative acts of self-expression? Altruistic acts? Sustainable relationships and harmonies?
I think that our ‘now’ is more polluted than ever. Time and space occupying the now has become overwhelmed with technological distractions that demand attention away from ourselves. We no longer maintain the same harmony with our surroundings that sustained us for so long. We have built artificial ecologies and hollow systems for sustaining our well-being out of lifeless material that demand no understanding or relationship, no immediate attention or care. I’m not sure what I think of it.
I’d like to know if the concern for authenticity is categorically misguided. Am asking the wrong questions? Is there something else I’m missing?
Anyway. Cheers!