Would this video come as any surprise if it had been the result of Neo taking the blue pill? Aside from the integration of the Office Space footage, this question is one that has definitely plagued a lot of people since The Matrix was released so long ago since the idea is that Neo would just wake up in his apartment, as Morpheus said, and go about his business as usual. But would he? Would he really? How do you go back to what you think is the real world when you’ve been given even just a glimpse of what might lie beyond it? True, some people can’t handle the idea that there might be something more, that what they see and hear could be anything other than what it is. But jumping down the rabbit hole might actually be kind of preferable to spending one’s life in a cubicle in an endless cycle of days that are just about as mindless as those that came before and those that might come after. Some might want to say that of course life isn’t this droll and unfulfilling if a person makes it so, and they’re right, but the idea of Neo taking the blue pill is something that kind of makes some of us shudder since it inspires the thought that he would have gone back to his cubicle and spent the rest of his life pretending to live and doing nothing else.
Some people actually want life to be boring. They enjoy the pace, the fact that there are few if any surprises that will really challenge them, and the idea that they won’t have to deal with too much stimulation at any given point. Others feel this is insanely boring, and while the ‘to each their own’ model states that it’s best to just let people be and respect their position, it’s quite difficult to simply turn away from a revelation such as the one that happened in The Matrix. It’s likely that many people would agree since trudging through one day after another is often seen as not living, but instead not dying. Waking up, surviving, and doing what’s needed to sustain life isn’t enough for a lot of people since they want to know that there’s a reason for it, that there’s a purpose, and that of course, there’s something that will come along and surprise them eventually. That’s a big part of living after all, no matter how bad it can get, and no matter that happiness is never a guaranteed thing. Many people would no doubt be of the same mind as Cypher when it came to finding out just what reality was all about, as the desire to be plugged into a world where your life could be reprogrammed in order to make you someone important would be enticing for a lot of folks. But it’s not a life if it’s not real and despite the need for fantasy and surprise, there’s also that innate need to remain grounded and be able to work from a well-established base.
It also has to be taken into consideration as to how those around Neo would react if he had taken the blue pill. Would Trinity have continued to come around? Would Morpheus have continued to seek Neo out in an attempt to recruit him? Plus, would Neo really be satisfied with ignoring the idea that there was something beyond his own world? These are all questions that need to be asked since the whole idea of going the opposite way that the movie showed is kind of a road to nowhere that still has a number of complications, the least trouble of which is the Office Space scenario, at least until one comes to the end of the video. It’s a bit of a grim ending really, but it’s also one that’s kind of amusing since it kind of sums up what a lot of people would have likely say about spending the rest of their working lives in a cubicle. For some folks, this kind of work isn’t that big of a deal and it’s not that bad, but for others that love their freedom and being able to move around on the job, it’s a cage with a convenient opening that lets them come in and out of the space that they’ll likely occupy until the company feels that they’re no longer worth the effort of a paycheck or until they can’t bring their fingers to type another line of code or data. That’s the breaks of a job in a cubicle since it’s not made for a wealth of movement and it’s not meant to be insanely comfortable no matter how ergonomics is meant to work. In a lot of ways, this is what happens to anyone that takes the blue pill in a metaphorical sense, and a lot of people have been ingesting that sucker for a long time now.
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