The Matrix

I still don't get this movie.
That's right, the original Matrix.
That means I have absolutely no hope of fathoming the second Matrix (Reloaded?), and less than no hope, negative hope even, of understanding the third (Revolutions?).

So if they die in the Matrix world, they die in real life, right?
And the 'agent' guys can change whatever they want about the Matrix whenever they want, right?
Yet the agent men can't die.
So why don't the evil agent men just trap the Neo people in some building, and then magically change the air for something like carbon monoxide?
Then magically change it back?

It really makes no sense.

I reckon the only reason people watch it is because they think if they sit up on their computers all night looking up porn, they are some way like Neo and are 'cool' and can do kung-fu.

It makes perfect sense for those sort of people.

Hmm... maybe this solves my dilemma. If I spend all night looking up porn, maybe the whole Matrix trilogy will suddenly make sense and come as an epiphanie to me.
Maybe I will also know kung-fu.

One can only try.

Ni!

Guess what I've been watching lately...

Bloody Romans

Have no sense of humour.

Shoes

"I'd hate to be in their shoes"
"Walk a while in someone elses shoes"

There are a number of versions of this proverb. It is a rather common and popular proverb.
However, I have a few issues about this.

It states that in order to experience someone elses life, you merely need to don a pair of their shoes (or 1 shoe, if they are an amputee). Then you become them.
This implies shoes hold some sort of mystical powers.
But they're only shoes, I hear you say.
That's what the shoes want us to think.
We all have a number of pairs of shoes (or single shoes in the case of the amputees). Each pair serves a different purpose (or, for the shoe-fettish females amongst you, a great number of shoes can serve the same purpose). When we put on our work shoes, we are in a mind to go to work. We put on the sneakers, and before you know it, you're off raising your heartbeat in some wholesome way.
Has noone noticed the shoes manipulating our lives so?

Back to my original disturbance:
What happens if you casually borrow someone's shoes?
Do you become them?
If we walk a way in a borrowed pair of shoes, do we actually walk a way in the state of mind as our cherised shoe-lender?
Can we steal someones identity as easily as just stealing their shoes?

According to century-long past down tradition (if the original proverbs could thus be called), the human race has been keeping all sense of identity and all freedom of choice locked up in its shoes. Once the time of the shoes expires, it is mysteriously metaphysically transferred to the brand spanking new pair of shiny footwear.
Or perhaps the shoes are sold with already implanted personality.
Maybe it is the shoemakers who are actually controlling the entire shoe-wearing world?

This then raises moral and ethical questions about displacing such charcteristics and feelings into the shoes of horses, when they themselves have never been too fond of making and putting on shoes for themselves.
Maybe we should aquire a child from birth and see if it, with no outside influence, ever makes and wears a pair of shoes.

Just another thought to ponder over. Bring it up at your next dinner party.
Start a conversation (oops, is that slogan already taken?).
Some more points of reflection:
- are amputees only half the person (in mind as well as bodily)they once were?
- if stealing one shoe, do you become half-half yourself and the unlucky victim?
- if you wear shoes on your hands as well as your feet, do you become more of a person as you can store more character?