Life In and Out of the Box OR Red Pill—Blue Pill?

Working In or Out of the Political System

by Jeff Bloom

Morpheus with the Red Pill and Blue Pill presenting the choice to Neo - *The Matrix* with quote from script, below.

Morpheus: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

The Matrix is one of my all time favorite films. Although a high tech sci fi movie, this work by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, in my mind, is up there with some of the old greats by Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, among many others. In many works of art there is a metaphoric quality that transcends the contexts portrayed. But, The Matrix doesn’t just have one or two metaphoric connections, it has a lot, almost a limitless number, of metaphoric connections. There are metaphors connected to the psychological, sociological, political, spiritual, and religious. And, they even overlap and intertwine in intriguing and thought-provoking ways.

Before I retired from academia, I taught a freshman seminar on “metapatterns.” I had a full class, plus a few I let in above the maximum. — More is Merrier! — I tend to dislike and distrust “tests,” and avoided using them for assessment. But, I was curious about what this group of young people were thinking about. I didn’t really need to test them. They had written papers and presented materials in class, but I wanted to see how they used the notion of metapatterns (patterns of patterns or patterns that appear across contexts)[[1]] more spontaneously with a variety of situational issues or situations. Multiple guess tests are particularly awful and meaningless, so I had question that required short to medium length written answers, basically a short paragraph or maybe two. One question was to discuss various meanings in The Matrix, which they watched near the end of the course on their own time, using metapatterns as part of their analyses. Although not particularly surprising, there was only one student who dove into the rabbit holes that arose from a more in-depth examination of the film. The rest of the students were flummoxed to one degree or another. But, then nothing in their schooling had ever asked them to think more deeply about symbolism, metaphors, meanings, etc.

In The Matrix, Morpheus gave Neo the choice to take the Red Pill and see the real world, which he refers to as “Wonderland,” or take the Blue Pill and stay in his illusory world of his own and others’ beliefs and assumptions. And, here you and I are! Far too many politicians in all parties and the voters in the last election have taken the Blue Pill. The vast majority of news media hosts and pundits have taken the Blue Pill. And, even those of us who cast ballots for Kamala Harris have taken the Blue Pill. It’s seductive and easy to take this Pill. It’s life as usual, but with some bumps in the road. It’s even life as normal even with a beds of thorns and trails of nails. It is quite odd when the horrible becomes tolerable.

If you have not seen The Matrix, the story is basically one of two worlds. The world of the Blue Pill in which we “think” we live in a familiar world, but which is actually imposed upon us by others as well as ourselves. The “real” world of the Red Pill is a world of AI who use human beings as their energy source. Every person is hooked up to a pod where they are kept asleep, while nourished and tapped for our energy. In order to keep the energy source going, the minds of the people need to be kept in an illusory world, the matrix.

Morpheus was among the group of individuals who broke out of their pods and are trying to free everyone else without crashing the whole living system. Neo takes the red pill; the rest of the film you’ll have to watch, if you haven’t done so already.

If you haven’t picked up on where I’m going with this recap of The Matrix, it’s a wonderful metaphor for, but not a wonderful characteristic of our lives in, our present situation… both as it is and as it has been. In the following, I’d like to briefly combine the matrix metaphor with the notions of systems, boxes, and cognition.

Some philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual traditions suggest that we all create and live in our own worlds. Though the details of how and what this “looks like” differ, there are some commonalities that are probably widely accepted. And, if we take the time to look more closely at our own experiences, we will likely agree. At a very basic level, we all can agree that we, as human beings, have created our worlds, with homes, businesses, social celebrations, belief systems (e.g., religion), and so forth. People did this. Some other entity didn’t do it. In the late 1760’s and 1770’s in the United States, people sat around talking, complaining, and arguing about what to do with the British and their king, King George III, and his predecessor, King George II. (For all of my British friends, distant relatives, and people I don’t know, I have no hard feelings; nor are any insults intended. We’re all in this gig together.) They saw the box they had been and were in, then planned their strategies to step out of the monarchy box and create a new democratic box. They even mentioned, in paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence, what to do if the box turns sour. They explicitly tell us to step out of the box and create a new and better one.

We always live and work in various boxes or systems. From families to nations, we live in, maybe in this essay we can call them, system-boxes. They are systems in that they are part of our complex living systems, which are dynamic sets of interdependent individual complex systems (i.e., each of us) that serve to provide continuity. They are boxes in that we try to solidify the idea of these systems as more or less solidified permanent or semi-permanent entities, complete with sets of exceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and all the rest. We expect to get up in the morning, drink coffee, smoke a cigarette if we still smoke cigarettes, maybe eat breakfast, go to work, work and relate to others at work like we always relate, do what is expected of us, have lunch, return to work, do more of what is expected and demanded of us, return home, maybe stop for a beer or glass of wine on the way home, eat dinner, watch TV, do our nightly get-ready-for-bed routine, tuck our kids into bed or not…if we have kids, maybe make some time for intimacy with our significant other, get into our bed, and sleep. Same basic pattern repeats everyday.

But, what would happen if you broke the pattern. Instead of sitting at your desk replacing break pads on a car, or delivering Amazon packages, you did something differently. What would happen, if you took the chair from your desk and sat in another room or in the hallway and did your job? What if you grabbed different car repair work orders and did them instead the the break pads you do everyday? What if you delivered your Amazon packages in reverse order, along with the inclusion of a piece of candy or a flower with the package? When Michael Richard auditioned for the part of Kramer on the Seinfeld TV show, he went in and read his part standing on his head. He stepped out of the box, which was oddly appropriate for that context. In fact, a lot of comedy and humor are based on stepping out of the box of expectations and assumptions about the way “things should be.”

Big corporations and certain take advantage of our mostly socially constructed realities. We’re “trained” from an early age to obey those in authority. If a teacher says, “sit at your desk!”, you sit at your desk. If your parent says, “be back home by 5:00 pm”, you’d better be back home by 5:00 pm. We get the same message over and over again in just about any context we go into. Then, when we get a letter from a doctor’s office with which we do business and they say we owe then $90, we pay them the $90, even though that may have been a mistake in billing. I find that almost on a weekly basis I’m actually fighting with a business, corporation, or government agency over mistakes they’ve made. In some cases, businesses have even been fraudulently billing for goods or services not provided. If you argue with them, they will say, “well, that’s our policy, we have to bill you for this amount.” I even had one person in a business say that it was the “law” that they have to bill us for a particular service. When challenged on that, the representative changed what she said to “policy” and not law, but she tried to intimidate me with the force of the “box.” And, they expect that we will cave in and pay.

These expectations and assumptions are necessary up to a point, but they are not solid. When going about our daily activities, they help make what we are doing easier. We don’t have to think about how to go shopping, how to go to the bank, how to take our car to the mechanic, or how to make a phone call. There’s a certain automaticity that makes everything work more easily. But, if the system-boxes stop making life easier, it’s time to dump them, and do things differently. If the whole system of automated types of activities is problematic, we have to change that whole boxed system. However, we can’t use the defective automated ways of doing things to fix the defective automated ways of doing things. We have to step out of the box.

I’ve suggested and described one such possible approach in “Can’t Fix a Dysfunctional System from Within that Dysfunctional System.” But, I’m not particularly all that creative at generating ideas when it comes to working with human dynamics. Although I have had momentary, spur of the moment, bits of clarity and creativity.

My first year of teaching was at a middle school in New York City. — With no teacher preparation, this was like jumping straight into the fire. But, I learned a lot! — One day midway through the year, a big “tough” 8th grader, walked into the teachers’ lounge where I was drinking a cup of tea, smoking a cigarette (when you could do that), and talking with some other students. The school was pretty flexile. It wasn’t unusual for students to be in the very tiny teachers’ lounge talking with teachers. So, this big kid walks in, picks up a pair of scissors on the table, then uses the scissors to pick up the used teabag. He then held up the scissors with teabag, looked at me, and said, “Bloom, this is your head.” I calmly picked up my wooden tea stirrer, broke off a little piece, held up the little piece, and matter-of-factly said, “This is your penis.” All the kids in the room, echoed, “Snap!” as the boy slowly disappeared down the hallway while trying to come up with something better to say. The next day, this same boy came up to me, put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Bloom, you need any equipment for your science room? I can get almost anything you need.” I replied, “No, we’re good. Thanks, anyway.” He was going to steal or “borrow” equipment for me.

I didn’t play the authoritarian game. I just played his game better than he played it. And, I didn’t have to disrespect him. Instead of damaging the relationship, we made it better.

Sometimes the most skillful things to do are the least considered ahead of time. The spontaneity may be less attached to ego or to having a stake in the outcome. It just arises and happens. But, in other situations, it may be advisable to carefully consider one’s actions before taking them. Even then, in the execution of a plan, you have to be ready to improvise in unexpected ways to put out embers, build up someone’s confidence, insert humor, and so forth.

We’re human. We need to propagate decency, empathy, compassion, respect, caring, inclusion (that means everyone, unless of course they have been jailed for undermining our democracy, but we can still be empathetic, decent, and compassionate… while putting them in prison… karma is a bitch). But, pretending everything will work, playing hopeless and helpless, and not taking any direct action is not even close to being compassionate, decent, respectable, caring, or inclusive. At one time or another, we’ve all been duped or conned. And, we all, to one extent or another, have been brainwashed. Or, in other words, we’ve all been acclimatized to the box and it’s sets of assumptions, patterns of behavior, patterns of thinking, beliefs, and expectations.

Some may say that the Trumpettes, Muskettes, and the Republicancers have stepped out of the box or system. And, they are correct. But, they stepped into another box of their own making that is even more problematic than the one we are all in. At some obscure level, the two boxes are similar, but the new box smells, feels, and appears much worse; and leaves a really horrible after-taste in our mouths.

We need to move quickly before more people are hurt financially, emotionally—psychologically, or physically, and before we pass a point at which non-violent action is no longer likely to succeed. But, each and everyone of us should keep pushing for direct action. We can talk about it here, in our own social groups, at work, at church—synagogue—mosque—temple or whatever. But, we have to put on the pressure. Call, text, email your politicians, news media people you watch, listen to, and/or read. We have to step out of our box, now!

And, please, we need to remind ourselves and each other that we are in this together. Let’s cut each other some slack, be kind, be understanding.

Let’s all take the Red Pill and urge our politicians to take the Red Pill!!! And, then we can meet one another on the light, bright side, where decency, caring, empathy, compassion, and our innate human intelligence are what serve as the basis for our expectations and assumptions.

NOTE

[[1]] GregoryBateson (1979/2002) first introduced the notion of metapatterns in his book, Mind and Nature. Tyler Volk (1995) extended Bateson’s idea of metapatterns using biological patterns to connect to other contexts of understanding in his book, Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind. Many others have discussed patterns patterns, which would qualify as metapatterns, as well: Ball (2011a, 2011b, 2011c); Bateson, N. (2016); Bloom & Volk (2012); du Sautoy (2008); Rasmussen (2024); Steier & Jorgenson (2005); Stevens (1974).

REFERENCES

Ball, P. (2011a). Branches: Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Ball, P. (2011b). Shapes: Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Ball, P. (2011c). Flow: Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Bateson, G. (1979/2002). Mind and nature:A necessary unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bateson, N. (2016). Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing Through Other Patterns. Axminster, UK: Triarchy Press.

Bloom, J. W., & Volk, T. (2012). Metapatterns for research into complex systems of learning. In N. M. Seel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning (pp. 2243–2247). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer—Verlag.

du Sautoy, M. (2008). Symmetry: A journey into the patterns of nature. New York: HarperCollins.

Rasmussen, L. (2024). Seeing: A Field Guide to the Patterns and Processes of Nature, Culture, and Consciousness. Makawao, HI: The Maui Institute.

Steier, F., & Jorgenson, J. (2005). Patterns that connect patterns that connect: A thematic foreword. Cybernetics & Human Knowing, 12(1–2), 5–10.

Stevens, P. S. (1974). Patterns in Nature. Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co.

Volk, T. (1995). Metapatterns: Across space, time, and mind. New York: Columbia University Press.

MORE INFORMATION

My other essays on this topic:

Can’t Fix a Dysfunctional System from Within that Dysfunctional System— this essay contains a letter template to send to legislators, as well as links to find and send notes to your legislators — posted 2/24/2025