“Hey Samantha, don’t take the Red Pill!” – Grandma’s Boy
If my son wanted to be a fiction writer, I’d send him to college to study journalism.
Have you ever not asked a question because you already knew the answer, but were afraid to hear it? I’m willing to bet we all have. I try to leave occasional breadcrumbs here, especially during my Monday and Wednesday posts, but I’ve stopped short of leaving my posts in the forest near a witch’s house. Besides, I hear Hillary has security guards.
The Truth is shocking. Many times, the Truth isn’t pleasant. I remember coming to one unpleasant Truth realization in college: the college didn’t care if I did well or even if I graduated.
It hadn’t been like that in high school. But in college? I was just a number. It sounds silly to me now, but back then it was quite a realization for me. Gradually, more Truths started showing up in my life. In many cases, I denied them as long as I could, but they eventually became inevitable.
They call this the Red Pill, after the scene in The Matrix where Keanu Reeves gets a job painting pills red.
Never let Morpheus do the cooking at a Matrix cast barbeque. There’s a reason they call him Lawrence Fishburne.
Part of the problem with discovering Truth is that it can make you feel alone. Much of our society is based on covering uncomfortable Truth with pretty little lies. It has always been so, but in 2021 it’s at the very worst that it has been in the history of the United States. People were censored a year ago for telling what are now the (generally) accepted theories about CoronaChan.
The Truth is that we still don’t know where it came from, but vary from any generally accepted truth about COVID on YouTube® and you’ll be censored. Thankfully, YouTube™ is so committed to “truth” that they gave themselves an award for being so courageous about it. Really – there isn’t even a punchline.
Here’s another Red Pill: no one (and I mean no one) is coming to save you. No one (and I mean no one) is responsible for your actions but you. If you can’t save yourself, you’ll just have to depend on luck, which is a crappy strategy. There is no secret cabal of government good guys like Qanon® used to put in his cryptic message board posts. Q is not coming to save you.
I guess QANON was just another 4Chan teller.
Part of the problem with taking a Red Pill is that, once you’re finally awake and aware of how the world works, just like Ebola, you want to share it with people. That’s a bad idea.
The unfortunately named Desiderius Erasmus Roterdamus made the silly quote, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” and with the new Red Pill knowledge, you want to share it far and wide.
Sadly, Desiderius, the one-eyed man is not king.
As H.G. Wells wrote, the blind people can’t see what the one-eyed dude describes. They think him mad, and if they have a chance they’ll tie him down and remove that silly eye that keeps giving him all of those wild notions and that awful practical joke of leaving the plunger in the toilet. People will fight nearly to the death to keep a pretty lie alive, especially when the Truth is ugly.
I wrote a check to a charity for the blind, but I’m worried they’ll never see a penny of it.
But there is opportunity for an individual once the first real Red Pill hits. Seeking Truth becomes a habit. And you find that Truth exists in many, many more places than you might imagine. When I go to find Truth, I know one place I can find it very quickly.
Truth is in the Iron.
I started lifting again this week for the first time since COVID raised its head. I was stunned at how one of my standard lifts was half – HALF – what it had been 18 months ago.
That is Truth. The Iron is Truth.
Was it at all pleasant to find my strength had dropped that far, that fast?
Of course not.
But it is True.
I gave up on lifting cases of Pepsi® for exercise, it was just soda pressing.
I cannot hide from the Iron. I cannot cheat the Iron. The only things there in the weight room are the Iron, Gravity, and Me. The only thing that changes in that equation is me. I can’t blame the Iron. I can’t blame Gravity.
The Red Pill?
No one will make me physically stronger but me. And the only way I can do that is to wrestle against Gravity with the Iron. And, unless I am quite ill, it will always work.
And here is the hope. Here is where the Red Pill really begins to pay dividends.
I’m the one responsible for:
- my physical state,
- what I eat,
- how I react,
- what I say,
- what I watch,
- how I treat others,
- my own Virtue,
- who I am, and
- where my life ends up.
I’m not responsible for who loves me. I’m not responsible for how much they love me. Those are the output. If I control every bit of input in my life, what happens, happens.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing more wonderful than that realization. It goes beyond winning and losing. It goes beyond the opinions of others.
The downside, of course, is seeing all of the pretty little lies and all of the attempted manipulation. Even worse: the attempts to numb minds, to distract, and to pretend that the new lie doesn’t contradict the last lie. The stunning thing to me is how many people will flitter from one contradictory opinion to another like butterflies in the Sun, with never a thought.
When I take responsibility for myself, I am a changed person.
I was born a male, I identify as a male, but according to Stouffer’s Frozen Lasagna®, I identify as a family of four.
That doesn’t mean the battle ever ends. The first struggle is, always, against myself. Why am I weaker?
I had weights at home, but didn’t lift.
Why?
Well, I could make any number of excuses, but none of them matter. I didn’t lift. That was it. So, my choice is simple: will I work to get better every week, or will I be complacent with where I am?
I asked the Iron a question. It told me the Truth.
Now, my choice is how will I answer?
I have only one answer. Sweat.
It’s never lonely when you’ve got Truth for a companion.
