Remember, there is no spoon

I suspect that, like Neo, I am living in a simulated reality. I wonder if the world that I perceive is actually a simulated reality created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human race, while the heat and electrical activity of our bodies are used by them as sources of energy. This is clearly the most obvious explanation for my constant lethargy and chilliness, and the fact that so many aspects of my daily life seem so absurdly repetitive.

Back in The Day, when I used to go to work like normal people, I was often struck by the weirdness of the sameness of it all. Sitting in the rush-hour traffic queue on the way to work, I would see the same people, wearing the same clothes, carrying the same bags, crossing the road at the same places every day. Sometimes the weather programme would be changed, altering the background to the scene, and occasionally the run-time for the various graphics would be varied, so that the order of events was not always identical. But I was frequently struck by sheer and utter repetition of it all, even down to the gestures and mannerisms of the familiar passers-by that peopled my daily commute.

Then, between the hours of nine and five (with the occasional nod at variety, courtesy of flexitime arrangements), my life was pre-programmed by externally imposed policies and procedures, and carried out within the generally accepted operating system of social convention. And in the rare gaps between the hectic running of multiple (poorly synchronised) processes which used vast quantities of my working memory, and generally succeeded in producing only vast quantities of pointless paperwork, I would sit at my desk, staring out of the high small-paned window at a hopeless patch of ever-grey sky, and wonder why we all kept going along with This Nonsense.

I guess it was partly this sensation that Life was somehow Not Real that sowed the seed of my desire to Get Away From It All, and seek authenticity in a different world. A world of nature and animals and weather and seasons. A world of very few people.

And for a little while there I thought I had made it. I thought I had broken free, and was living a self-determined reality in which I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, and in which I controlled my own destiny. But lately, I have begun to wonder….

I have mentioned before that the routine predictability of our current life can be a bit of a downer for me, (Tedium Laudamus; Chasing Rabbits) but lately I have been struck not just by the repetitiveness of the routine (which is of course unavoidable, and fundamental to its very nature), but by the repetitiveness of the details of how it unfolds. For example, whenever we take Stubbs and Rufus for a walk (run? crazy-and-violent-dash?) Mad Lenny tracks our progress down the lane and then, at the point where the dogs turn off the lane and into the area around the field boundary, all hell breaks loose. Lenny and Stubbs charge along next to each other on either side of the fence, Lenny spitting and Stubbs yelping, with Rufus in hot pursuit. Then where the boundary turns right down the hill, Rufus stops while Lenny and Stubbs hurtle to the bottom. Then Lenny comes back up, and Rufus heads down the slope just as we reach the corner to catch up with him. At the bottom corner, Lenny stands for a minute chewing grass and then heads off across the field to spit at Duc and Valentine, while we cross the plank bridge and Stubbs and Rufus begin their mutual rough-and-tumble wrestling match that carries them pretty much all the rest of the way back.

Every day – every walk – is pretty much identical. And yesterday, as I took in the familiar image of Rufus poised at the top corner in his customary position at that point in the walk, like the tip of an iceberg of crashing sameness, I realised that I was stuck in a loop. The Matrix segues into Groundhog Day, and I have no way of distinguishing one day from the next.

Of course, it is only a short step from such a realisation to a Google search for Simulated Reality, followed by the dusting-off of a well-thumbed copy of “The Myth of Sisyphus“, and yet another contemplation of The Pointlessness of Existence.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face…. It happens that the stage-sets collapse. Rising, tram, four hours in the office or factory, meal, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. ‘Begins’ – this is important. Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness…… In itself weariness has something sickening about it. Here I must conclude that it is good. For everything begins with consciousness and nothing is worth anything except through it.

Albert Camus

So, there you have it. Being bored by the predictability of a routine existence, and struck by the absurdity of it all is actually a Good Thing. I am one lucky existentialist indeed.

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