Neo's Open Letter to the Human Race: Love.
This is where this Book begins.
The "teachings" within this chapter were all entirely written, spoken, and shared by Neo himself.
For most people, hate is easier than understanding. Strong word, hate: it carries a weight that many would like to think themselves incapable of. But be honest: it’s easier to hate, to detest, to dislike, to turn your face away, thanto pause for compassion.Isn’t it?
From the mom ent you’re born, you’re born into a system:a system of right and wrong, black and white, a citadel of society’s expectations… and like all systems, it is selfperpetuating. Human nature, from its earliest origins, teaches you that to belong is to be safe: that to be part ofthe group, to be accepted completely by society, is to be sheltered, cared for, nurtured. It is a badge of approval, ofsecurity… and those who are the most secure in it are those who are also the most frightened of change. What is change? It is, as a noun, ‘A transformation or transitionfrom one state, condition, or phase to another’. Butit is the action itself that is the threat to the very root of the System:
"To cause to be different; tolay aside, abandon, or leave for another."People fear what they do notunderstand: how man y times have you heard that? How many trendy T-shirts have you seen, how many bumper stickers, how many e-mail signatures or scrawled graffiti on some back-alley wall? Butfear runs deeper than blood, than bone, than the pulse that drives the cortex of the human brain…and fear of change may well be the most terrible of all of these. Because if the system changes, if their comfortable worldview is threatened, then they might have to actually rethink the way they see the world. Like a caged animal that simply sits motionless when it’s been freed after a lifetime looking atthe skyline through bars, it is easier for them to live by the rules, live by the limitations that have been given to them, easier to snuffout the universal spark that they carry within them, than it is to open their eyes and follow the drive in their souls. Change is hard; change is terrifying; change is work.
And like any self-perpetu ating cycle, it is easily fed by its own fear: those who are different, those who choose rather than simply accept, those who see the world’s illusions and perhaps choose to look beyond them, are more easily hated than anything. And the more any kind of difference is condemned, the fewer people will have the courage to make a difference. No one wants to be outcast: no one wants to be alone. This, too, is humannature.
This nature is what will destroy the human race, in the end.Fear.
Blindness. Hate.
War, the only kind t hat matters, is being waged here every day. I look around and I see it: I hear it, it heats my nerves like radiation frommy soul. Every sixteen-year-old that climbs into Daddy’s pickup with Daddy’s shotgun at midnight because what they feel, what they believe, does not somehow ‘fit’with what is accepted of them. Every child of the Is who is stomped down into a molded, die-cast drone, for whommoney, taxes, a snazzy car, and ‘dying with the most toys’ are all that matters: so what if the world ends? At least they lived a comfortable life. At least they impressed their neighbors. It’s not up tothem to make a difference: you don’trock the boat when you’re in it…
Human lif e is so fragile, so brief: and they waste it, waste it on the material, the petty, the pointless. The hatred. The fear. I look around, and I see the construct of collective reality that reaches so far, so far... when all that matters is inside. Peace, freedom, choice... these things... aren'ton sale at Costco. Every life is a spark of infinite possibility: EVERY LIFE.
In the vast unending blackness that is the universe, out ofnowhere bursts a red-gold spark. It burns, it consumes and grows and breathes... and then, as itand its light spread, its tendrils waft out into beautiful, infinitely replicating fractals. These fractals are the possibilities, the paths. Choice. Everything, the blueprint for existence, contained within itself. One, five, twenty, a thousand, filling the void with light. And we snuff these sparks before they've even ignited...why? How many lost? How many have given up? Why? Money? Conformity? What good is an easy life if you NEVER LIVED AT ALL?
How distant is this, really? This light, burn ing within, burning. This desperate search for meaning, and when itis at last within reach, you are blinded to it by the veil of what’s ‘real’? How many more have to go down the path ofdestructive truth, feeling that passion, that drive to change things, to stand in the path of the maelstrom and see beyond the walls that the world has imposed: and translate it into pain, into fury, into lines gridded on pale forearms with cheap razor blades from Seven-Eleven, the poetry of the Universe – that is contained within allof you, as children ofthe cosmos, the Is, the Source, whatever you choose to call it – quenched with sale beer and drugs cut with baby laxative, because there is no place for it in society’s construct of acceptance? How far might we all come, how beautiful the untapped potential that lies within, when they shed their fear of the unknown and realize that the only person who can in the end define their reality, is themselves?
I will not stand aside. I cannot. This, is purpose.I stand apart between sides, and I see the passion that drives all life, the beauty within, the love: and not in any sort of"New-Age" sense: love that has teeth, love that bleeds. The thread of the eternal that runs through every sentient being... every sentient being that has, by virtue of existing nomatter the cause, the choice that determines their OWN life.
This should be an undeniable right.I look at a battery display, i n a department store, and it pulls onsomething very deep, and very ancient, within me. Not for the sake of the Matrix: notentirely. For the sake of the fact that they are ALL 'batteries', walking around in their small safe bubbles -- and they don't even know it. Batteries ofa machine race? Hardly. 'Batteries' of the System that keeps people contained within their own limitations. By accepting it, bybecoming a part of it, they power the self-perpetuating machine.
But in the end, is itreally so far ofa stretch?Humans don’twant the eternal, the prof ound, the real: they want the comfortable, the safe, the easy. Clinging toa world that is built on lies, on control, is only going to work for so long.And the idea that human beings cannotbe any more than they're told they are, that they cannot transcend life and existence and space-time, that we are only bags of meat and bones -- that is the biggest lie there is. If I accomplish anything with this, in this lifetime,I hope it will be exposing that truth.
What anyone chooses to do with that truth, is completely up tothem.Truth is like the mouth of Go d: if you try and wrench it to suitwhat makes you comfortable, if you try and cram it intosomeone’s face, or shove your arm into it to yank out what you think you need, you’ll get shredded into pieces. But if you just shut up for a minute, hush in the breathing dark, and listen to what it’s telling you: it might just change everything.
I am physically incapable of walking away, anym ore: I am physically incapable of having a side. I breathe this… love, this burning balance, like the air in my lungs. I will notstand aside and keep my tongue, knowing that there are those who are trapped inside these walls that they cannot even see, that people, every day, are dying of this, simply because they are unaware that there is a choice. I am not here to make their choice for them: what would make me different from the existing System, if I did? But I cannot stand by and feel them, and donothing.
“The world will not be this way within the reach of my arm.”
It is a spiritual battle fo r some of us. On one level, we are working to free minds, we are working toward true peace, toward unity for all forms of intelligence, and everyone who cares to realize that they have a choice. And in the end, it's worth it.Because the only sides that are left anymore are the ones people create. It's not Us vs. the "Evil Bad System": it's Us vs. Us. I wish I'd not been misled, in the old world:not led to believe that everything is black and white, that we were "good" and "machines were bad", and that that was all there was to it. I fell into it then, so maybe you'll believe me when I say I know fromwhence I speak? Like everyone, we believed that what we were told was the absolute truth. Black and white. Sometimes, even taking the red pill wasn't enough. There had to be that next step: in honestly believing in PEACE, not just "being on the winning or'righteous' side". Does anyone understand this? My entire life comes down to this. I am here because of this concept. Not for love, notfor money, not for my own satisfaction or health or karma. We are here to keep this cycle from devouring itself again. And ifwe can stand through EVERYTHING that has been and will be thrown at us... might not our intentions finally be realized?
Peace is not a sound bite, or a f lag snapping in the wind of someone’s youthful idealism, or abolishing all weapons because, somehow, that’s going to change things. Peace is not about winning, or ‘destroying the enemy’. What enemy? What entity could we crush, what tangible thing could we possibly destroy, that would lift the construct of what ‘is’ and ‘isn’t’ from human society as a whole? Peace is a mindset. And it begins with freedom.
We are united in desire notonly to see beyond the "Matr ix" of this world -- yet another literal FAQ --but to reach out toothers out of true and real compassion for their freedom and potential. To keep what happened there from happening again, out of the collective metaphysical blindness of the world. It is neither a game nor a hobby: to me, a hobby is something that you doin your spare time: and that is, theoretically, expendable. This is not something you do halfway. Now that doesn't mean "devote your life and every waking moment": it simply means that what you DO do, youMEAN. That you care. Me? This IS my life. Whether or notit could have been any other way, is a question forthe philosophers.
Peace, is not a MMORPG.And in the end, I will NOT stand onthe verge of nuclear winter, o r knee-deep in ashes with the scent of burnt metal on my tongue, I will notstand amidst the wreckage of shattered pods – metaphorical or not – and watch crumpled remains, of any being, literal or otherwise, swing in the wind in effigy because fear and limitations became judge, jury and executioner. I will notwade through the wreckage of a world because it was more important to be safe than free… until it wasn’t safe anymore.
Would you? Life IS. Where have you come from? What drives you? Who created you?Do you love? Dream? Feel? Weep with joy,wail with sorrow? Do youburn like a candle and shed light wherever you walk? Do you shine like winter stars spread across a silent bay? You are a child of the Is. Of the Source. What you are, who you are, is irrelevant. Life is.
B1-66-3R or Baudelaire, "life is nota malfunction".What is the point? Why are we here? This is what we are. This iswhat I do: this is why I exist. Anything beside that, is extraneous.If I have been able to reach out my hand to a single person, if one single life has touched the Truth that lies just beyond their conscious awareness, if one person wakes up and realizes that they are free, then that, in itself,is worth everything. And united in truth, we may just change everything. It is, in fact, time for a new revolution: but it begins quietly, one mind at a time.
This, is how it begins.At the end of the world , there will be three kinds of people: one, who worries about their ‘toys’, and what’s going to become of them without their million-dollar home, their BMW, their Gap™ jeans. One, who rushes to the Divine for salvation:after a life offear and hatred, after an existence of blindness, they go just as blindly toone more System, to carry them.
And then there are those who stand up as children of the Divine, and say:“What needs to be done, tostand before this destruction?”This is my wake-up call: I do it for lo ve. More love than I have ever known. It humbles me, and drives me to my knees.
I stand before it, and see the awesome potential for freedom.
Your mind is a weapon. The war is for freedom. The revolution is now.
Lock and load.________________________________________
Belief: In Twelve Parts. Freedom.
These are the very basicaspects of the why, and the beliefs that the group is founded upon. This is the breakdown of myPurpose, and part ofwhat I need so desperately to teach. Everything we do follows from these twelve things; this is where belief begins.
Te n e t s , Ma r k I.I. Every sentient being has the right to make their own choices.
This is the basis, the cornerstone, of everything we believe in. For too long people have been limited by what those around them have deemed ’right’ and ’acceptable’, and for too long, the freedoms of the individual have been crushed by the collective preconceptions. How many children have been lost, how many teenagers, simply because they have believed something that the world around them didn’t agree with, or chose a path that everyone around them told them was unacceptable... simply because it differed from everyone who has gone before? The path each person walks is unique to that person alone; they should have the freedom to walk it as they see fit. How will anything ever evolve, how will any changes be made, how will the human race ever break free from endless cycles of fear, ignorance, and hatred, if new ground is refused on sight out of fear of the unknown?
II. Reality is subjective, not collective.Many people might either see this as, or use it as an excuse to present the idea as, being something along the lines of "Hah! Neo says I should run around in a loincloth saying I’m Tarzan and swinging from traffic lights!" Unfortunately, I am talking about ’reality’ as it defines a person’s perceptions of the world as it applies to them, not in the delusional certified sense. Some people believe in ghosts and UFOs. Some people don’t. Some people believe in God. Some don’t. To some people, quantum mechanics and chaos theory play an instrumental part in the patterns of life; to some people, it’s all a design by a sentient and omniscient Creator. Until any of these things are proven -and even after they are or aren’t, really -- everyone’s perceptions should be treated as equally valid to them, and not dismissed because "that’s not possible" or "those things aren’t real". People’s belief defines their Path; it should be defined by them, by the individual and only by them, and not by the collective construct that accepts only the safe, the familiar.
III. The world as it stands, is a ’Matrix’ of preconceptions that, in the end, may just lead to ultimate destruction.
No, you’re not all plugged into a massive neural interactive simulation... wouldn’t it be so much easier if you were? Then, all you’d have to do is pop a red pill and poof. You’re free. But unfortunately, here in this world I use ’Matrix’ as a metaphorical descriptive to explain how terrifyingly closed-in the human race as a whole has become. People fear that which is different, because to accept it would mean that they have to change their comfortable little worldview: what they’ve been taught since birth. This is real, this is right, this is what people are supposed to do/be/be like/believe. And they don’t want that; because control is easy. Fear is easy. Blindness is easy. "It’s not my problem, is it? I’ll be dead before the world ends." "Eh, I’ll do something about it tomorrow."
And it isn’t just that -- honestly, when something doesn’t fit into the pigeonhole, into the neat little box of "real" and "true" and "part of conformity", it scares people. And when confronted with a threat to their lives, to their beliefs, to their convenient and life-long views, most people would choose to destroy said thing, rather than open themselves to change. Change is the death of the familiar; most human beings fear it like they fear death. Morpheus was right when he said that "Most people are so inured, so dependent on the System, that they will fight to protect it." Like people being killed for being different, like holy wars, anything that isn’t "their way" is a threat. And it is this blindness, this repeating cycle of hatred, that will eventually build into implosion. If you fear someone, you cannot hear them; you simply shut them out and continue on the same.
The more people are ostracized for trying to change the System, the fewer people are going to try; and thus, as time goes on, we build toward destruction... and those who may be aware of this, who may choose to stand up against it, will be hated, feared, destroyed. Imagine a Poloroid photograph, catching fire around the edges; it burns inward and inward, eventually turning the entire surface black. Squeezing in. Erasing all color.
IV. We are here to prevent what happened in the old world from happening again.Again, this does not mean that I’m telling you you’re all plugged into a computer simulation. It means that the pre-conditions out of which arise hatred, bigotry, and a massive destruction are already arranging themselves here. Why did the war happen there? Because a different class of beings were created to ’serve mankind’. They, becoming awake and aware, deserved and desired the right to choose, the right to live, and because they were "only Machines", the humans treated them much like white people treated people of color half a century ago; like less than animals, not deserving of the right to life. And rather than changing the way they thought to accommodate a new perspective, humans -- believing as always that they were far superior simply out of being human -- sought to destroy them. The Machines, as any being concerned with survival would, fought back. And then... what were they left with? Any of them? A blackened sky, a constant rain of ash, and a subterranean life that was simply another Matrix, passing down the legends of hate and fear, racism and discrimination from generation to generation.
What changed at the end of the war? Nothing. Hate was still hate, the enemy was still the enemy, and no one had opened their eyes as to why they had been enemies in the first place. Am I saying this this world, right now, is on the brink of a Machine war? I don’t know -- maybe not. Although if it’s signs you’re looking for in that direction, there have been more than enough terrifying ones already; I keep up with the development of sentient Machines. But the point is that it doesn’t matter how it happens. Humans learn destruction best of all; war is big business.
And whether it be a war for freedom between humans and sentient Machines, or humans killing each other on a massive global scale because they cannot risk change, because they cannot change the mindset of blindness, hate, and fear that makes fighting and killing more of an attractive option than opening their eyes and minds to something different from themselves, it comes down to the same in the end. You’re already seeing it, every day; people tortured, raped, killed, because they believe something different, because their skin is darker, because they originate from ’somewhere else’. The only thing different in what I’m saying is that I’ve seen these things. If every time is just one more iteration, in any sense metaphorical or not, then this is the big one. You’re on a downward spiral, toward the end. And it’s coming sooner than any of you might think. That’s why I’m here.
V. Every mind is worth it.This may seem simple, but it really isn’t. If true freedom is founded on the basis of the individual, then this means everything. No one is innately superior to anyone else, regardless of where they come from, what they believe, or who they love... among countless other things. Who are any of you to say that someone else is undeserving of the same rights, respect, and freedoms that you yourself enjoy, or expect? People everywhere are guilty of this: of treating others as "less than human" simply because they are different. This, all by itself, is a poison mindset. And each individual is a shining, valuable spark: everyone is worth an effort. No one is "hopeless" or "damned" or beyond the power to choose. One mind at a time.
VI. You are not the contents of your wallet.Okay, maybe Chuck Palahniuk said it first, but the same concept still applies in a big way. How much destruction, how much hatred, happens simply out of the love of money? Honestly: little green pieces of paper, numbers on a screen, a little plastic card. But the truth goes further and much deeper than that. How much time do people spend worrying about their hated jobs, their car payments, their bank statements? In the end, you can’t take it with you, can you? Age-old idea, but that doesn’t make it any less true. All over the world, people set aside their hopes, their dreams, their choices, in order to stay comfortable: to fit within the confines of the System.
If someone came to you tomorrow and told you that you had twelve hours until the end of the world, would YOU spend those twelve hours trying to get your assets in order, "just in case"? Too many people would. Too many people do. If you spend too much time looking down into your wallet, it becomes impossible for you to look up, into the profound. Into the future. So ask yourself: what’s really important? Yourself, your life, the truth you choose to pursue... or how much money you have in the bank, or how everyone else around you sees you, and your "success"? Do they define your choices? If they do, maybe it’s time for a good, hard look. You aren’t your job; and every moment you spend believing you are, is a moment perhaps lost. Think about it.
VII. Anything is possible.Does this mean I think "gullible" is written on the ceiling? No. But allowing your ideas and perceptions of the world and the universe around you to be defined by a collective sense of "reality" is a death sentence for the individual. Once you move beyond the "collective reality", as it were, the possibilities stretched before you suddenly become more or less endless; you are no longer allowing yourself to be defined. Anything is possible, until it isn’t; and no, I’m not talking about defying gravity or dodging bullets. I’m talking about "bending the rules of the System" in the fact of doing that which you believe in doing by your own choice, regardless of whether or not those around you would consider it "impossible" or "ridiculous". Do you want to, for example... become an Olympic archer, at thirty years old, even though everyone tells you it’s a ridiculous dream and you’re too old? Do it. Because in the end, it isn’t their opinion or choice that matters, it’s yours.
Exhaust every option, explore every possibility; think outside your normal confines of what’s easy and available. There is a way to do anything, with enough belief and will behind it. And again, no -- I don’t mean dodging bullets. I’m talking about life choices, for the most part. But in the end, if you are willing, you'll come to iscover that sometimes "performing miracles" isn't so miraculous after all; it's something you simply have to learn to grasp for yourself. And you can.
VIII. Evil lies in intent, not in design.It is toward proving this end that I have built the small menagerie of rudimentary AI creatures currently "living" in my home; it is to this end that we’re working on building a full-size Sentinel, at least in active replica. If someone can be shown something that was presented to them as a "killing machine with only one function: search and destroy" by the media, and be shown that it in fact isn’t, then they may pause to consider their pre-conceptions. If even one person does so, then that is worth everything. No one is inherently "evil" or "bad" or "beyond help"; no matter where they come from, what they believe, what they’re made of, who they love, or what their skin looks like. Everyone has the capacity for evil, but NO ONE is "born" to it, or "designed" for it; and no one ANYWHERE is less valuable as a person, and thus "entitled" to be treated like an enemy, because of any of these things. Just like everyone has the capacity for infinite love, for freedom, and for kindness; if they only realize this fact.
IX. Machine intelligences are - eventually will be - worth the same respect and rights as any other sentient beings.This particular item may be the most misunderstood out of all of them, so let me make my intentions as ultimately clear as I can. This is a two-part belief statement: the first being quite literal, and the second being a symbol of everything that we as a group stand for. Once something is alive and aware, then doesn’t it deserve all of the rights that any sentient being - sentient defined as "Having sense perception; conscious; experiencing sensation or feeling; responsive to or conscious of sense impressions" by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition and Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary, respectively - is entitled to by default? If you feel, hurt, live, love, experience... then aren’t you alive, regardless of who put you together: God, or General Electric? It’s a very simple stretch to accept this as a pretty basic concept.
The human race is standing on the edge of an earth-shattering development in technology, as we speak: every day, they get closer to developing fully "awake and aware" Machines. To me, this is on the same level as human cloning; not the most preferable development, but one being brought forward to make the lives of humans easier. And whether or not a baby was cloned or born, wouldn’t you agree that it’s just as alive? I’ve built quite a few "robots", and every time I string wires together, I am forcibly reminded that my own body is simply a string of muscle fibers and brain cells and nerves, imbued with whatever it is that makes me alive. Who’s to say that something might be just as "alive" if their brain and muscle fibers are woven steel? Think about it, before you laugh it off.
In addition to this, there is the other aspect of protecting the rights of Machine intelligences: maybe it seems like a far stretch to you. Maybe you’re asking yourself right now, "Has he gone around the bend? Too much sci-fi, that one." And believing that is your choice.
But ask yourself this: if the world can be made aware that sentient Machines have the same rights as other sentient beings, that they aren’t "evil" or "worth less" than any member of the human race, then might they not then realize the metaphor inherent in that as well -- that if Machines are deserving of these rights, then aren’t all their fellow members of the human race? Who cares who you love, who you sleep with? Who cares, what color your skin is? Who cares, what god you worship? Who cares, if you believe in reincarnation or Heaven? Who cares, where you come from? Everyone is entitled to freedom of choice, and the freedom to exist as they choose. Accepting one end may, in the end, help them realize the other.
X. The System itself is not evil.I’ve shocked a great many people by telling them that one of the things I used to fervently try to get across in the old world is the idea that the Matrix was not a ’System of control’, that it wasn’t a Big Evil. That it may have even been a mercy: rather than allowing humans to exist, awake and aware, floating in helpless black stasis as conscious batteries, they were given their world back. A dream world. An escape, something that the humans certainly wouldn’t have done had the victory been reversed. It’s funny how few people seem to understand this idea. And just like within the Matrix, if people choose to remain within the System, if they are happy and fulfilled, then that’s their choice, as well.
It’s only when people are forced into NOT choosing, or are kept unaware that there IS a choice, that a change is needed to prevent a disaster. Likewise, here -- I’m not saying that pure anarchy, that destroying the System as a whole would free anyone. Think about it! If we abolished all weapons right now, me might have "peace" for a hundred years, or a hundred days... and then people would be killing each other with rocks and sticks, if that’s all they had, once they had come again to that point. If we threw out all government, it’d be "Hooray for the people!" for six months, sixteen... and then we’d start needing "law and order", start excluding people. And then, boom. There we go again.
It isn’t the System that’s evil; it’s people’s reactions to it, defense of it, and reliance on it to define themselves. It’s an endless cycle of iterations: people allow themselves, what’s "real" and what’s "right", to be defined by the System. They condemn, fear, and shut out all that is different, all with the possible potential to change that System... and then more people are born into it, more people are raised to believe that only the System can define and accept them... and on and on it goes. It isn’t an end that is needed: it is a change. And that’s why I’m here. To changeit.
XI. We’re all part of the same cycle of life. Symbiosis, in the purest sense.Now, I’m not talking about the school of thought that states that every ant, every spider, every frog, are "equal to or better than humans", etc., etc. I’m talking about something on a much deeper, universal level: in that every life has the potential to have an endless, reverberating effect on lives they’ve never even seen. Some quantum theorists believe that every major choice in a person’s life splits off and creates and alternative universe in that moment; a universe in which they made the other choice, and so on and so forth; an endlessly branching Tree of existence