Continuing on last week’s theme, I have been thinking about that scene in the first Matrix movie where a newly awakened Keanu Reeves (Neo) is presented with an option--choose the red pill or the blue. One leads to a reality that Neo is unaware of, the other sends him back to the mindless sleep in which he has been for his entire life.

That’s the choice we make each day—a choice between awareness of our true selves and the meaning of our lives and the dream state we call reality that is anything but real. Among other sources, the Wachowski brothers, authors of The Matrix, credit Plato’s Phaedo and its allegory of the cave as one of their inspirations. I found this a compelling concept too—as did Robert Pirsig in his seminal work, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which served as a model for Life, Love, and Internet Dating.

I think we are all drawn to an essential truth contained in Plato’s work, namely an unease about this thing we call reality. Perhaps you caught a faint glimpse out of the corner of your eye that told you there was something else—a ‘glitch’ in the Matrix so to speak that suggests you haven’t got the whole truth about life. Why should that be—and why do so many of us experience that odd sense of unreality, about reality?

At the risk of sounding cynical, it feels in some ways as if we have been manipulated—told one thing but experienced quite another. At this point you may be thinking I am about to pick up last week’s theme about God’s reality versus our human sense of what is real. Well surprise, not yet. Instead I want to take a little side excursion.

Some folks who have developed a theory about dating and relationships have named their credo The Red Pill. Do a search on Google and you’ll find plenty of references—or perhaps you already know about this philosophy. If not, allow me to sum it up for you in a few words. This incredibly cynical view is about playing hard to get—well way beyond that—it is about playing a game with human emotions. I’m not really interested in you until you want me so bad I’ll deign to notice you. I will treat you badly and you will come back for more. Those are just some of the rules of this game of manipulation that some men—and surprisingly a few women play out in their relationships. Why do they do this? Because, sadly, it works.

There is this perverse thing about us that we want what we cannot have. Combined with a low sense of self-esteem, and maybe a history of abuse and rejection we set ourselves up as willing accomplices for those who would treat us this way. Scorn us and we come back for more—reject us and we are desperate for your love. We think so little of ourselves—have such little confidence and pride we’ll come back for more time and again. At least that is how the cynics see it.

Red Pill adherents have learned how to manipulate—and consciously or not they use this knowledge to obtain a desired response. It isn’t foolproof, there are some women and men who have an innate reservoir of self-respect and dignity, a feeling of worthiness that cannot be manipulated. Their eyes are open—they have swallowed the blue pill and see things as they really are.

Now we come to the place you suspected I would go—to God. He is the blue pill, the truth, the one unassailable center around which we can discover what is really the truth—who we really are and what we are destined for in our lives. Once you have taken this pill you are inoculated forever—you can no longer be deceived; you know he is real and that our lives matter more than we knew. In fact, you know that everything we say and do, every word, thought, and action is known to him, and we are accountable for all of them. Not that he is judging—but we are. We know that everything we do can cause harm or good, can hurt or love. And once we know this we are bound to follow the only course that matters—to love, abundantly, generously, and all of the time. Love him, love our wives, husbands, boy and girlfriends, our children, our friends, in fact every person we encounter.

So you decide—Red Pill or Blue? Do you choose life, or fantasy, reality or a cheap stage trick? As for me, I choose life but it’s up to you, God won’t make that decision for you.