Morpheus: “Do you want to know what it is? 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 turn on your television set. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. That you are a slave, Neo, like everyone else, you were born into a prison that you cannot see, that you cannot smell, or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.
“Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. — The Matrix

Claire Colburn: Hey, you’re only 45 minutes away. You wanna meet
halfway and see the sunrise? At this point its probably easier to
stay up!

Drew Baylor: You think so?

Claire Colburn: I think thats what “they” say! — Elizabethtown

Once we ask the ominous question “Who are they?” by inherent contradiction we are then led to the question “Who am I without a ‘They’?’ That question is laced with enough trepidation that it keeps the bravest of people out of the light and deeper into the dark.

If you walk on a train in the UK most of the time no one talks to the person next to them or across from them or even acknowledge respiration. There is no contact. On public transportation, everyone is a leper with the most contagious strain. To ask a question about a proverbial them also would mean that at the end of that inquiry comes an anticipated response to this discarnate “They” who make the decisions for us. Responding to these questions means we would have to responsibly think for ourselves. It means we would have to actively engage in a world much better than the one we have now. When we start prodding systems in place and challenging historical maxims we then put ourselves in an almost visible firing line.

If we do nothing, they (whoever they are) will continuously and creatively find ways to make it seem that we are thinking for ourselves. That
even though the choices are pre-chosen for us, we ultimately are chosen for by the masqueraded entourage known as “They.”

Another social expectation in the UK is that it is a socially conventional practice to purchase Christmas cards for others, whether they be family
or friends. There is a silent social anticipation. And what’s not being said is being shouted the loudest. It’s as if someone does not send Christmas cards, then the whole order of social fabric is shred to pieces. But who says this? They do.

We listen to Them under the guise of freedom, but in reality are living for them rather than ourselves.

In America, most tourists visit with the expectation of the renowned customer service that is boasted about all over the virtual world and even in the real world. but who says customer service has to be measured against some objective form of public pleasuring? They do.

They are constituted by corrupt systems in place. They are the one’s who cry ‘render unto caesar’s what is caesar’s’. They are the
wizard behind the curtains. Their insight into things is our blindness and pre-contrived mechanistic response’s. They don’t want
us to think for ourselves.

Who says we have to buy into consumerism? They do. Buy the latest name brand. Be the first in line. Win. Win. Win.

But whatever you do, don’t question us. Don’t peek behind the curtain. If you do, the ordered illusion we have created will dismantle. The world as we know it will fall apart. We won’t know how to cope. Won’t question your government, they have the best intentions for you (aka, wikileaks). Don’t dig deeper into corporate corrupt systems (BP) or you might find what you’re not looking for. Trust us. We know what’s best for you. These are whispers that haunt our pseudo-relaxed reality.

This same ideology echoed the atmosphere of the religious systems entrenched in a systematic way of belief.  Then a rogue. An outsider steps onto the scene. Makes whips out of nearby items. Turns tables overs. Talks about cohesion between the jews and the greeks. The pagans and the Christians. Calls political leaders names, and not just for fun, but to make a point. Helps the outcast. Heals the broken which would have re-ordered the whole social structure. Challenges the corrupted religious systems in place. Walked into church and frustrated the listeners. He was an outcast himself. He died an outcast. He was such an outcast that a corrupt system of death couldn’t hold him down.

There was another guy who walked on the scene many years later. Called the systems out. Used non-violence. Sat naked in deserts. Inspired other mystics. Wore glasses. Transformed india.

A woman was tired. She didn’t want to walk all the way to the back of the bus, so she decided to take a seat at the front. A move so subversive her story is still being told.

People who didn’t listen to the discarnate voices of They. People who thought for themselves. Once we think we for ourselves then we can dream for ourselves then we can creatively work together. But as Morpheus told Neo, we must be willing to pull the wool from our eyes.

Thinking for ourselves is a dangerous thing.

When Jesus stands on a hill and gathers outsiders, the unclean, the diseased and tells them that They are the ‘salt of the earth, this is subversion against a system that says otherwise. Salt was one of the most valuable commodities in the ancient world. It would cost you a pretty penny to get a hold of some salt. Jesus tells a bunch of nobobidies that they are somebody. Jesus is being revolutionary here. We cannot mistake this for some Tony Robbins speech, but one that reaches to the soul. A message that they don’t want you to hear. A message that will numb you from the wells of illusion you have
been drinking from.

Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan talks about perversion but not in its original sense, but rather in a sense of castration – powerlessness – perversion is when someone or something can’t accept its own powerlessness. Their power is an illusion. They are entrenched in their own perversion, but we have to choose whether we will continue encouraging such perversion. If we think for ourselves then we are the cracked mirrors who show them their fragmented existence(s). We are the existential investigators who dig much deeper then they say you should and begin working together, believing together, empowering one another toward a better world that they are afraid of.

So I think a step in the right direction is to begin asking ‘Who am I without a They?’