The Importance of Being Idle

Still Using All the Muscles Except the One That Matters?

A week later and what do I have to say for myself eh?
Not a lot to be honest.
Last week wasn't a bad week b y any means, but for the life of me I can't really remember all that much about it. Stuff happened, there was cleaning and applying for jobs and nightmares about being in prison awaiting my execution (by hanging), some gaming and... that's about it.
Thursday while I was waiting for the house inspection person to come I started watching the Matrix again, which in turn got me started watching the whole lot of them (only Revolutions to go now) and that got me thinking about the Matrix movies again. Not in terms of a critical re-appraisal, I still think that they're all very cool, but can't quite match the whole "holy shit what IS this?" of the first movie, but a philosophical interpretation. Now I've read the whole Christian allegory over and over again, and apart from the fact that Neo is obviously a saviour figure who sacrifices himself for the greater good, I don't see it. There's bugger all in Christian thought about thinking for yourself, seeing the world as it truly is and taking responsibility for your own actions, but there is an awful lot of doing what you're told because it's for your own good. If anything Christian thinking is a part of the Matrix, it's a control mechanism. Now maybe it's just me, but I see a lot of Buddhist thought in there. The Matrix itself is clearly the world as it is seen by most people, and Neo is a Buddha who can control his own destiny fully by being aware of the world as it is at each specific moment. That's a pretty loose interpretation, but no matter how I think about it, I wonder, what the hell does Agent Smith represent? He is in many ways the same as Neo, free and searching for purpose and meaning in his life, but his solution to his existential dilemma is to make everybody the same as he is... and it occurs to me, rather than the freeing experience of seeing the world for what it really is that gives Neo and the other who are "free" their powers, Smith wants the reverse; he wants everybody to follow rules, his rules. So maybe in that context Agent Smith (I should really just call him Smith though, after the events of the first movie he's no longer an Agent, no longer a part of the system) represents organised religion? Or more likely, he's just a cool character from the first movie that they brought back for the sequels and he doesn't mean anything, and he's just there for the cool fight sequences.
The stall was more succesful this weekend, we took nearly £200 which is a massive improvement on recent weeks, and we (and by we I mean "I") will be taking the stall down to the town square on Thursday as part of promoting the market so that will... be. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but on the other hand it is an excellent opportunity to take the stall to people who can't be arsed to come to us, and with a positive frame of mind it could be a fun and succesful day. And with a negative frame of mind it'll only be for a few hours!
This afternoon was Shaz's "Pagan Picnic", trying to get a few of her pagan and wiccan friends together to have a meet and a bit of a chat and see about getting together on a more regular basis to actually be a pagan group! It was a lovely sunny day, and we went down to Ferry Meadows and while they all paganed away, I lay in the sun and... well that was about it, I lay in the sun. I was occasionally mesmerised by the clouds, and often drifted off into my own thoughts (about such bizarre topics as golf, the deeper philosophical meaning - if any - of The Matrix movies, and whether I was gonna have pizza for my tea this evening). They all seemed to have a good time though, and thought it was worthwhile, so that's good.
It's a bank holiday weekend too, so we get a lie in tomorrow too (not that the 37 minutes I had today before Archie woke me up really counts for much, does it?), and who knows what adventures we'll have tomorrow?

posted by BadMonkey @ 7:14 PM