The Vicarious Speedster

Jack Frost You Twit. Every morning I wake up to your handywork on the roofs and on my lawn every morning. Early each morning I work extra hard to scrap the thick ice from my car windows. But that's not enough is it? When I start driving they frost over again. But you don't discriminate do you, between the ones that can afford to fix their defrosters (I bet you recoil at even the mention of the word) and install central heating and those who cannot. No mercy for those who lie shaking in their beds at night under blankets so thick it is stifling. But you'll never know such a feeling. Nor will you know so many sleepless nights. No Mr. Frost, you will continue in your mischief because you don't know what it's like to not be able to get your hands and your feet warm for days on end. To not be able to get anything accomplished in a day because you spend all your time trying to keep warm. You think you are so clever, breathing on humanity and watching them shake. But you will get yours Jack Frost. When the summer comes I will laugh as you retreat, melting in the glorious rays of sun. If you cannot treat us poor folk with thin socks with sensitivity, then we will not have any pity on you when you get your dues. Come summer Jack, we will have the last laugh.

Well, I just got back from watching the "Matrix Revolutions" and although I missed part 2 I think I understood enough to be pretty disappointed. Despite all the over-the-top action, mediocre dialog and gratuitous neo-gothism I can honestly say I enjoyed the first "Matrix" mightily. It wasn't just like every other science fiction film. It happened in our own world and opened us all up to the idea that our world is not quite what it seems. Maybe we've got everything wrong. Maybe it is all just an illusion of truth. You may say "of course we're not being duped my machines you dolt!" but that's not what I'm talking about. At first when I walked out of the theater from that movie and similarly "The Truman Show," I did wonder if there was a giant conspiracy cleverly hidden from my view, but eventually "Matrix" became a paradigm for the way I looked at life. Maybe--I began to question--our traditions or our habits or our culture is like a smaller "Matrix." Out lives are run by traditions, habits, routines, and cultures and most of the time we don't even know where they come from, why they exist or what purpose they serve. And do these things, these habits, traditions and routines inhibit us from living a better or more fulfilling life? Are we caught in a Matrix--if you will--doing things the way we do them because we've always done it that way and have never thought to change them or even considered that there could be another way to do things, another way to live?

When you think about all that, then maybe you will realized it's not just bad scripting when all Neo can say is "Whoah."