Neo - seeing things as they are

I saw Alex today and talked about my recent dating experiences. I do a pretty good job of understanding what's going on these days - both in dating and in myself.

Driving home I feel like Neo in the movie "The Matrix" (was Robin's favorite). Essentially he's born immobile in an incubator and enslaved to machines which feed dreams into his brain while they harness his body's electrical energy. Well into adulthood he thinks he's an autonomous being living in a world of rules where he wakes each day, gets dressed, goes to work, has relationships, eats food, goes to sleep. But in reality, all along he has been sleeping and dreaming inside the incubator alongside millions of other human slaves. An umbilical cord feeds him nourishment. A computer network creates his illusionary life and pipes the images into his brain like a movie.

Some humans have escaped from the slave farms and they rescue Neo, releasing him from the prison. In order to save the human race they're required to plug their brains back into the computer network - interacting with the imaginary dreams of the human slaves. The computer generated environment seems so real when they venture back inside but eventually Neo finds the energy within himself to change the computer programs and therefore the outcome of events inside the Matrix.

At the climax he's plugged back into the matrix and he's under attack, a barrage of bullets is hurtling toward him when he finally halts the computer programs. The bullets stop in midair a foot short of piercing his Matrix persona. He reaches out and gently picks a hanging bullet out of the air, inspects it, acknowledges that it's not real, drops it to the floor. The remaining bullets fall to the ground. Acceptance of the dream world and it's rules has ended. Neo has become master of his environment - he sees things as they are and his imagined limitations disappear.