Zombie

The Case Of Cypher

2006-03-14T10:15:00.004-08:00

He is definitely every bit the despicable bad guy we all love to hate. But, in all the villainy he displays in the story, there is one scene where before he dies he says something very interesting to Trinity.

Free? You call this free? All I do is what he (Morpheus) tells me to do. If I had to choose between that and the Matrix, I choose the Matrix.

Which brings us to the question, What exactly is freedom?. Is living in the Matrix without the knowledge of its existance the same as living like rabble outside it? What if you were John Carmack in the Matrix and once unplugged you become yet another one of the many hackers and crackers you see in the real world? Everything you have worked at, all your life is brought to naught. Every man measures himself against two things, himself and the world. If the world is an illusion and "himself" is based on that illusion, what does man do?. What do you do when you realize that 22 years you have been dreaming?. Would you want to wake up?

I would.

The Matrix would have been the world you wish it to be. The world you create inside the illusion. But, the fact remains; it is not real. No one will remember your name when all the dust has cleared. Your file will be deleted, all references to it erased. Your life would have had no meaning, for illusions have no memory. Freedom is our (as human beings) quest for the meaning of our life and of life itself. That meaning will never be found inside the Matrix, no matter how simple the meaning maybe because of the simple reason that that meaning was not real. It was constructed wholly by you and you only but, its construction was based on something else's understanding and interpretation of the real world; not yours. You cannot build a pyramid of truth on a foundation of lies and probable truths.

So, What exactly is freedom?

Freedom is our choice, if we wish to make it, of going about to discover the meaning of our life and not find that we are being restricted from doing so.

C8H10N4O2

2006-03-14T10:15:00.003-08:00

It has a smell that one would not like instinctively,it takes a little getting used to. As you inhale its fetid odours into your nasal cavities, you feel a newkind of elation surge through you. The mind is instantly aware and the body is primed. Is this an instinctual reaction or one that is brought about due to habit?, a little of both, maybe. For, the smell signals the availability of the powder that will allow you to create that elixir that fulfils your addiction,an inexplicable one at that.

If the smell of its soul is strange then the taste of its being is downright alien. Its being is a foul looking liquid resembling the vile fluids that one might expect to be part of a witch's brew, arcane and sinister. How one could consume this sludge almost defies explanation. For, what evil power can be-witch a man's mind so much that he would willingly, sometimes eagerly, consume a liquid that looks its been through the digestive apparatus of an Orc??. Well, it is one of those mysteries that cannot be explained rationally because humans, here the object of mystification, themselves are not inherently subject to rationality. The powder, the source of all this mystery comes from distant lands of elevation where rich landlords become even richer growing its leaves on mountain slopes inorder to feed the craving of billions of addicts all over the world. This addiction is never going to die,which is precisely why we call it an addiction and not anything else.

There are as many ways of preparing this brew as there are addicts on this planet. Different operating systems with the same kernel. In a world of infinite choice, you don’t really have much choice now, do you?. You can drink it cold or you can drink it hot.You can even drink it a few days after you prepare it assuming you are ready to make trips into lands colored in psychedelic hues and shades where you might meet Alexander the Great or his pet cat (Darius) even. But, ironically it is not for its alkaloid induced escape that you drink this liquid, but only to be more involved and to be more aware of the reality of your own existance. As usual, this defies logic, why would you take an intoxicant with the idea of achieving a state that is exactly the opposite of being intoxicated.

Anyway, the time for cosmic introspection is over. "The board is set, the pieces are moving" (said,Gandalf in the Return of the King). So, I conclude this text with a cup of this vile liquid in my hand, my breath stinking of the powder that seasons it, my body warm with the heat of its traversal through me and my mind wondering, if we will ever get Coffee in Hell, for that is where all addicts of the brown elixir seem to go.

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Kiran Kamineni
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Ruination

2006-03-14T10:15:00.002-08:00

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Ruination
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Born in the arms of desolation,
Breathing in the airs of pollution,
Living the dreams of desperation,
Waking through nights of disillusion,
Searching for absolution,
From your sins at the edge of destruction,
You can't escape the corrosion,
No, you can't.

What are you?, an industrial production?,
An annulment of nature's creation?,
Or just a grand delusion?,
Of man and his imagination,
An original product of human invention?.
Destined for extinction?,
Or maybe even execution?.
Or just a hallucination?.

You are an automation,
With one destination,
A deviation,
An aberration,
A mutation.
Sigh!!, maybe you are just an abomination.

But, I think I know your disposition,
Your ever changing complexion,
Morphing with time, your constitution,
Subject to the laws of evolution.
Just a distraction,
In this industrial generation?.

Like a nuke, screaming ARMAGEDDON!.
Like a sin, seeking redemption.
Like a mind, wanting illumination.
Like a bot, embracing annihilation.
Like a soul, awaiting salvation.
You live, sifting through the confusion.
Trying to find, your last temptation.

Living through day, as a dream,
Sleeping through night in delirium,
This is for you, your requiem.

Your Requiem for a dream.

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Ruination
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There is no spoon...

2006-03-14T10:15:00.001-08:00

When Neo says, "There is no spoon...", he is just repeating what a bald Tibetan kid said in the beginning of the movie. But, I loved that line, "There is no spoon", so deep, so profound and so full of meaning. Atleast thats what I had thought until I came across real world examples of this. I always knew that the real world was a metaphor for this line, but, I knew that, in general, not specifically in the cases of particular instances.

Consider this,
You live in a big, busy, polluted city,
and
You want to cross the road...
Simple enough task, simple enough objective in life...
But you wont, because there is too much traffic today, because your parents will ask why you are crossing the road, because you dont want to take any "risks".
This is when you are 20.
Imagine the same thing when you are 5, you are not worried about the traffic, you are not worried about the "risks", you are definitely not worried about your parents' wrath either. All you are worried about is that 5feet tall gate that is blocking your access to the road. You are thinking, "How in the hell(or its age 5 equivalent) am I supposed to get past that gate??".
That, however is not what you think today, is it??. This is an age where you have become more mature and that implies that you look beyond the obvious (the gate, in this particular case) and you look at the unobvious, the fictional, the spoon, so to speak.
This transition from percieving reality as a bunch of physical obstacles to a bunch of mental obstacles is a wonderful thing, once you are Neo, and only if you are Neo.
The truth is, you are not Neo, you are more restrained, more hesitant, more unwilling to do anything because you "think" that you cannot do it. That may or may not be true, how will you know, unless you try it?? You wont!!

These mental barriers are, to quote Morpheus, "everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window. Or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work. When you go to Church. When you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

And the truth is this,
We start as individuals without any percieved limits in our mind, with limits that are set by the environment only, with boundaries that you can see, smell, and touch. These limits are set by Nature and, you can choose to be limited by them or you can choose to break through them. ("Choice", as Neo, so eloquently put it). These are physical, like the wall in front of you, like the half-mad, rabies infected dog beyond the wall, like the god-awful stench coming from the drainage ditch beyond the dog, like the black soot spewing out of the auto beyond the ditch, like every damned thing you see in this world. These are physical.

And the truth also is this,
We end up as individuals with so many limitations, I cant do that, I cant climb these stairs, I cant cross the road, I cant read this book, I cant understand that, I cant drive this bike, I cant eat non-vegetarian, I cant drink milk, I cant eat curds, I cant climb this tree, I cant dance, I cant sing, I cant fvcking do anything but say "I cant"!!.

Well, let me ask you something, my negatively inclined homo sapien friend, how the hell do you know what you can or cannot do unless you
tried doing it?.
Did you just come up with this, I can / I can't list overnight, all in your mind?.

We have built a beautiful castle surrounded by a 100 foot wide moat containing starving crocodiles and half the poisonous snakes in the world, with a single, foot wide, drawbridge without any railings, with a fire breathing dragon gaurding the entrance, with 4 spires rising in four different directions, with wall-to-wall carpeting, with 100,000 dollar chandeliers, with your own peacock throne and Ghengis khan's mummified head on a stake.
Sure, its a beautiful castle, but, the point is this,
You are inside it!
And chances are, you are not going to walk a 100 feet over the foot wide drawbridge across the moat with starving crocodiles and get past the fire breathing dragon.
And chances are, that I am right!!
And crossing the road isn't even a tenth as risky as that!!

Now, that makes me wonder, "How exactly did the chicken cross the road?"

Whatever happened to fresh air??

2006-03-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

This may come as a shock to many of you out there, but, I have a moral obligation to tell it anyway. Bangalore is dying. I know, I know, this is hard for you to accept but, it is the truth and there is nothing I can do about it. A city is normally like a living breathing organism which must exist in harmony with nature and the people who live in the city. Bangalore, however, is barely alive, it is choking on its own traffic and its lungs are tarred black with the fumes of this insanity, it is in the throes of epileptic siezure enveloped in a paroxysm of debilitating pain which is slowly but inexorably bringing the whole city to a stand still. Like a giant brontosaurus suffering from arthritis, which cannot take one more step furthur without suffering the pain of bone grinding against bone, the city is barely lumbering on into the future. The brontosaurus will eventually stop, just when its heart can no longer pump the litres of blood through its colossal body, just when its worn joints can take no more, just when its lungs can contract no more, it will stop. This will be the fate of this city too... No matter how many construction projects you undertake, no matter how many flyovers you build, no matter how many by-pass surgeries you do, no matter what you do, this problem will not go away. Ever.

There is no space, there is no room, everybody wants to be at the same place at the same time, vehicles spewing out half burned hydrocarbons, humans breathing in the farts of vehicles and other humans, this is the way of life in the city of meteoric prosperity. They say, everything has its cost. They were right, whoever they were. Money, your salary, has its cost, 16 hours of pollution breathing and 3 hours of mind-numbing, bone-jarring, senseless, travelling, per day, per week, per month, per year, per life. And, this is the good life. Imagine that!!, No, No, try imagining the bad life!!

But, the saving grace of Bangalore, had to come from Mom Nature herself eventually. Bangalore is still a cool city and has a great climate (when the pollution is not so evident) and of course has more trees than there are houses, which would not be the case in many cities in this country.