Matrix Warrior Revisited:
“The only way to publish truth among domesticated
primates was to let them think it was satire.”
—Robert Anton Wilson, Right Where You re Sitting Now
In
July of 2002 I wrote a book I hoped would be a big best seller and make me
loads of money. It didn’t, but certain other things came about as a result
of writing the book, things that had zero effect on my solvency situation
but opened other kinds of doors for me. Matrix
Warrior brought about several fortuitous meetings that never would
have happened without that little book, meetings that literally came out of
nowhere. To give one of the more bizarre examples: while sojourning in Greece
in early 2004, I received an email from an elderly Welshman named John Wright.
The email informed me that John had enjoyed daily communications his dead
wife, Annie, via what is known in the field as “Electronic Voice Phenomena,”
or EVP. Through these media (ordinary or digital recording devices that pick
up anomalous sounds, sounds that could be interpreted as disembodied
voices), the late Annie Wright recommended to John that he read Matrix
Warrior! The actual phrase—which John recorded and filed along
with hundreds of others, and which I eventually heard for myself—was: “Get
to read the matrix, John.”
John already knew about the movie (not his cup of tea), and following this
peculiar message, he did a Google search to find out if there were any books
on the subject. By this time, there were many rival publications on the market,
but as if by kismet John wound up at my Divine Virus website, where he was
able to read some samples from the book. John immediately saw that the premise
of the book questioned whether our reality was as real as we assume it to
be. Since this was the very thing he was beginning to question through his
dialogues with Annie, he surmised that Matrix
Warrior was probably what he was supposed to “get to read.” He
ordered it online, and before he had received the book, he emailed me and
told me what had occurred. A few days later, he asked Annie why she’d recommended
the book. “It’s a good book,” came the reply. “It’s about the One.”
If only we could use this quote for our publicity campaign, I thought!
“The book even the dead are lining up to read!” Now that’s great copy!
The critics may not be paying much attention, I thought, and it’s not looking
good for a listing in the Times Literary Supplement; but souls of the
deceased recommend it! No wonder I can’t have that best seller, I thought,
if the majority of its followers are discorporated. Too bad there’s no way
to set up a PR unit in Limbo. Or maybe there is?
I was curious enough to go and see John a few weeks later, and the four days I spent in Wales (with my traveling associate Elizabeth Wu, who interviewed John for an article about EVP) were certainly a formative, and transformative, experience for me. In fact, meeting John (and, in a manner of speaking, his dead wife Annie) was an experience for which I remain profoundly grateful. It was richly instructive and thoroughly unique (I trust for all concerned). Some day I may write about it in more depth, but I mention it now merely as something that never would have happened without Matrix Warrior. That little book served as a bridge between two respective worlds, that of the author and a 72-year-old ex-fireman in Wales who may or may not have received messages from the dead. Two souls that otherwise never would have met, not in a thousand years. In the end, such revenues count for infinitely more than money in the bank. Because if there is anything at all in this brief and bewildering life that we do get to take with us, it is memories such as this.
*
It was a some-time practicing Satanist, some-time S & M call girl, part-time ecstasy dealing horse race aficionado who first gave me the idea to write Matrix Warrior. As we will see, she has a lot to answer for.
I’d fallen for one of those get-rich-quick mail-order scams, one that was especially convincing (to me at least). An official-looking certificate stated that the recipient (actually my mother, but close enough to home for my avarice to kick in) had won some £750,000. Part of claiming this prize entailed buying some cheap trinket necklace, however, so I suspected fraud; and yet the document seemed to be stating that the prize had already been won and only had to be claimed (by purchasing the tacky necklace). And so, blinded by greed, I began to count those unhatched chickens, and imagine that all my financial troubles were over.
On a side note, and regarding those financial troubles (which were and
remain legion): once upon a time I used to be rich. I inherited a small fortune
from the Father’s family business (Northern Foods), but a combination of wanton
spending, bad investments, and (most fatally of all) a Siddhatra complex,
led to my losing/relinquishing this inheritance and being reduced to utter
poverty. This happened some ten years before the events currently described.
Since then, I had struggled like most other people on a daily, or at best
monthly, basis to make ends meet. I found a job or two along the way, but
most of the time I improvised, becoming a so-so private English teacher in
Pamplona and a Tarot reader in several different countries. I even published
a two-volume movie study called The Blood Poets, but despite all of
this I remained incapable of maintaining any lucrative income. By the time
of the imagined “wind-fall,” I was a few thousand in debt, thanks to the mixed
blessings of plastic.
One of the first people I showed the bogus certificate of wealth to was
the afore-mentioned sorceress, whom I knew had a modicum of experience with
the art of the con, certainly compared to myself (who remained, despite my
Buddha-esque excursion into poverty, “an easy mark”). My sorceress friend
saw through the scam immediately, and in an instant all my fantasies of affluence
were dashed to the ground. This encounter led to a conversation with the sorceress,
however, who on hearing my despair at ever joining the ranks of the filthy
rich, rather glibly remarked, “Why don’t you write a book?”
“Have you any idea how many books I’ve written?” I replied testily, incensed
by the suggestion of so obvious a “solution.”
I had written half a dozen books and almost as many screenplays over the
previous ten years or so, all in the vain hope of somehow “breaking out” and
making a name (and a living) for myself. Of these many works, only Blood
Poets had been accepted, and only that by a small academic press, with
a miniscule first run of 750 copies. The profits from this literary success
(which had at least garnered praise from my personal mentor, Pauline Kael)
were barely enough to pay for a new printer cartridge.
On failing to get more than a brusque dismissal from me in response to
her rather cavalier remark, the sorceress rephrased her question, more
cannily, and said, “Why don’t you write a best seller?”
This idea had more of a novel ring to it. Why not write a book solely
for the money, since I was writing compulsively anyway? Without missing a
beat, I replied, “If I were to try and write a best seller, I’d write a self-help
book and call it ‘How to Get Ahead in the Matrix Without Really Trying.’”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they had a future. This
wasn’t just an idea; it was a prophecy. And the rest, if not exactly history,
is at least a matter of public record.
*
As everyone now knows, I wrote Matrix Warrior in
two weeks (a fact that my harsher critics have cited as proof of the book’s
sloppiness). Before it was even fully corrected, I had contacted Simon Spanton
at Gollancz, Orion, and he had asked to see the MS. I sent it by email, and
less than 24 hours later, Simon called and said he was prepared to make me
an offer. Needless to say, I was reeling. It was like getting into a car and
finding myself going 100 mph before I’d had time to fasten the seat belt.
Matrix Warrior was written and accepted in
July 2002. It was scheduled for a May 2003 release to coincide with the first
Matrix sequel, about which hopes were high (how little we knew in those
more innocent times!). At the time the book was written, it was the only book
of its kind, that is (since it’s still really the only book of its kind),
the first unofficial companion to the movie. Right around this time, however,
as I was signing the contract and preparing the final draft, I found out about
a new book due out called The Matrix and Philosophy. Soon after that,
Taking the Red Pill came out, and by the time Matrix Warrior
was released in the US (November 2003), there must have been half a dozen
books on the market inspired by or based on the movie(s). Not that any of
this mattered. Competition is good for business, they say, and I was confident
that none of the books would take the approach which I had taken. Matrix
Warrior was (as I had originally conceived it) a self-help satire masquerading
as a movie tie-in.
Remember at this time that I was trying to write a best seller; or rather,
I wrote the book thinking that it would be. In actual fact, if I’d
really wanted, or intended, to write a best seller, I would have written a
very different book, and not a work that scorned the public and mocked its
craven pursuit of fame, wealth, and success. Whether it would have made any
difference at all to the book’s sales is a moot point, since I could only
ever have written the book that I wrote, that is, a sounding bell for Armageddon
disguised as a self-help satire, masked as a movie tie-in. Of course I wanted
to make money and have loads of fans. The truth of Matrix Warrior is
that I wrote it because I thought it would sell, and I was right about that;
it just didn’t sell as well as I hoped. There are several reasons for this,
but only one that really counts here: my unconscious intent was different
from—and incompatible with—my conscious desire. That is what this piece is
about.
Consciously, I intended to ride a cultural wave—that of the Matrix
movies—to some pre-conceived land of wealth and opportunity where I would
establish myself as a literary genius, best-selling author and satirist, possibly
even world teacher and contender to the throne of “The One.” (If people wanted
to buy into that bit of self-mythologizing hokum, I was confident I could
hold up my end of the bargain.) I should have known better. Privately, among
friends, I admitted that all this depended to a rather distressing degree
upon the Matrix sequels coming up to scratch and delivering the goods,
something the film surgeon in me knew was a very long shot indeed.
In mid-May, I spent time in the South of France with Elizabeth Wu, an actor
collaborator Mark Lawn (he played Leon in my movie Beauty Fool, and
the afore-mentioned sorceress. I had the use of some friends’ house near Cannes,
and we went there ostensibly to check out the festival that year, where Matrix
Reloaded was to have its premiere. I knew Keanu and the crew would be
there, and it seemed appropriate that I make my appearance, and if possible,
get copies of the book to the cast and crew. I had by then read an early,
sneak review of the film, and it didn’t bode well; but I was still holding
out for a miracle, since so much depended on just that. I was about to learn
the true meaning of the phrase, Never put all your eggs in one basket. Most
especially if that basket was made in Hollywood.
From Cannes journal:
This planet is overrun. It is a plague, an infestation,
and as long as I’m part of it, I can never escape it.
Cannes
was interesting. Certain elements intervened to ensure that I get copies of
the book to Keanu and the Wachowskis, though now I have seen the sequel, I
wonder if there’s any sense in it. They all seem to be utterly plugged in.
Hollywood is the enemy, may as well face it.
But
one of our gang (warrior Mark) ran into Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) at Soho
house, and since he was carrying copies of the book, he approached him and
handed one over. Hugo looked pleased and said, “Keanu would love a copy!”
So Mark produced another copy and handed it over. The following day I went
into Cannes again with my sorceress friend and between us we deduced where
the Matrix crew were staying (huge Reloaded banners hanging
outside the Carlton being our first clue). I bluffed the receptionist into
giving me the room number for publicity, went up and inscribed a couple of
copies for Keanu and the Wachowskis.
I found out later that he and the rest
of the cast left Cannes in disgust, if not shame, after the vitriolic response
to Reloaded. Apparently there was a backlash from French critics against
the infiltration of the festival by Hollywood blockbusters, and Reloaded
got the brunt of their attack. At least that is the story I heard, some time
later. Poor Keanu. One of the reasons I was so keen to hook up with him was
because I’d had a dream with him some nights ago. He was depressed and discouraged
(when I saw the sequel, I knew why); I told him that, little by little, he
would lose his sense of self and that all his fear would go along with it.
He had to do this a little at a time, however, so that he could learn to disguise
his transformation, otherwise people would just assume he had gone insane.
It seemed like sound advice to me.
I also left our number on
a separate note, inside the book, in case he wanted to meet up; and of course
I was unable to abolish entirely the hope that Keanu would call us. And of
course, he didn’t. All this was just another detour from my true purpose,
which is not to make connections within the matrix, obviously. Equally plain,
Keanu and his $50 million might come in handy, but only if he’s able to grok
our true purpose. This seems increasingly unlikely, dreams notwithstanding.
Seeing the movie has deflated
my spirits considerably, however indulgent that may be on my part. It is a
necessary disillusionment, but the result is that not only have I lost faith/interest
in the Wachowskis and the Matrix phenomenon, but also, to a lesser
extent, in the book. My worst fear has been realized. The book must stand
alone, or fade away like a bad dream along with the rest of the Matrix
hoopla.
As the above testifies, when I first saw Reloaded, I knew it was
all over. Later, I read how Keanu and the cast had fled Cannes in the wee
hours of morning to escape the wrath and derision of the French press; and
rightly. The movie is a travesty. It is far more than just another disappointing
sequel, however. What really stung was that, beyond being a terrible movie,
Reloaded threw away (in a seemingly wanton fashion) an almost unlimited
amount of creative potential. By all rights (especially considering the Wachowskis’
claim that they had conceived The Matrix as part of a trilogy from
the start), the Matrix sequels ought to have been mind-boggling works
of art. Any number of filmmakers, given only the ideas from the first film
to work with, might have produced brilliant works that developed the characters,
premise, and story of the first film in any number of different directions.
(Both The Animatrix and The Matrix Comics tapped into and amply
exploited this almost infinite potential.) But the Wachowskis failed where
Terry Gilliam, Darren Aranofsky, or even David Fincher or James Cameron might
(with the right writers: yours truly to the rescue!) have succeeded. They
failed in such a monumental fashion that there simply had to be a corresponding
backlash of contempt from the public. With the exception of an undaunted core
of die-hard Matrix fanboys (geeks, to you and me), everyone, but everyone,
felt let down by Matrix Reloaded. By the time of Matrix Revolutions,
a large portion of the original film’s admirers didn’t even bother showing
up. Inevitably, there was a sense not only of frustration and disappointment,
even depression (speaking personally) at the wasted possibilities, but of
disgust, anger, and scorn, all of which was leveled at the Wachowskis, and
at the industry that had spawned such a monstrous misuse of talent and ideas.
People who had loved the first movie almost despite themselves, despite its
kitschy, designer violence, destruction chic, and pop philosophy, people who
knew they ought to know better but fell for it anyway, now decided that they
really did know better. Understandably they resented having been hoodwinked
into anticipating a sequel that even a child could have predicted would be
junk.
The task of art (small ‘a’) is to seduce the audience into devouring and
digesting ideas that would otherwise be unpalatable to it. That’s what Shakespeare
did in his day, and it’s what Hitchcock and the best filmmakers (including
the Wachowskis for their fleeting moment of greatness) did in theirs. The
Matrix seduced audiences and had its way with them, and we came out feeling
smarter, lighter, more turned on as a result. Then the 1-2 wham-bang shite-fest
of Reloaded and Revolutions came along, and we all knew that
we’d been screwed. Since the same team who had seduced us the first time around
went on to fuck us the second and third times, it was inevitable that some
people distrusted their initial reactions, and doubted the romance of the
original seduction. As a result, not only the movies were rejected (rightly),
but also the ideas that had spawned them. The very same ideas which Matrix
Warrior used as fuel to journey into the collective psyche, were now discredited.
In short, no one wanted to hear about The Matrix anymore.
*
The ingenuity which inspired me to write Matrix Warrior—to use a cultural phenomenon of potentially revolutionary proportions
as a way in to the mainstream—this cunning bit of coat-tailing by a
writer/artist tired of thriving in obscurity—back-fired on me. The book’s
commercial (and even to an extent critical) success depended almost wholly
on the follow-up movies being as good as the first, on the buzz growing to
a fever pitch, and on the ideas associated with “Matrix” becoming more
topical, controversial, and “cool,” with every passing hour. It depended on
ever greater numbers of ordinary people asking The Question: What is the matrix?
Whereupon, your humble author would provide the not-so-humble answer: This
is. Look around. You are on the inside.
Now I see that such a bid was misguided and doomed to failure. The work
in question remains unchanged, but, if a tree falls in a forest and no one
is around to hear it, does that constitute a sound? Matrix Warrior was styled and aimed for mass consumption. It’s not a book that is likely
to wind up on the must-read piles of Noam Chomsky or Rupert Sheldrake, even
though I like to think they are exactly the sort of mind it is really aimed
at. It’s not in danger of being compared to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and
Evil, or even John Gray’s Straw Dogs, any time soon. Compared to
such works, Matrix
Warrior is doomed to languish amidst the sophomoric and
the juvenile. Which only leaves the true believers, those who saw the first
movie and understood, then saw the sequels and understood that too (some didn’t
even care that they were crap: they were only interested in finding more clues
to the Mystery). To these (mostly adolescents or teens, a few in their twenties,
fewer still in their thirties, forties, and fifties), Matrix Warrior remains what it always was, a cry in the wilderness, declaring for those
with ears to hear us that the splinter is real, the spoon is not. You are
not insane: everybody else is.
These are the people the book was written for. They will never make me
rich or famous. But they may help to make sense of all of this, and so help
me to realize a deeper dream. Better to reach to the very core of a single
being than to entertain a million strangers.
Perhaps I am doomed to thrive in obscurity, but what of it. A candle finds
its raison d’etre in the darkness.
Meanwhile, the critical response to Matrix Warrior was
not so much mixed as polarized. Like many satirical works that set out to
undermine basic ideas about society or our way of life (Fight Club,
for example, or Natural Born Killers), Matrix Warrior seemed
to be a “love it or hate it” kind of experience for most readers. Though I
know intellectually that any work of satire worth its salt is going to upset
people (I said as much in the book’s afterword) and so receive its share of
slings and arrows, taunts and digs (some better aimed than others), still
I was depressed to find that I, my still less-than-erased ego, was anything
but invulnerable to such attacks.
Roman Polanski once pointed out that if you are going to believe the good
reviews, then you have to believe the bad ones, or at least take them on board.
If it matters what people say and think about whatever it is you are doing
enough for you to appreciate their praise, then it is going to matter when
they shit all over you. Even when you know (and the style and thrust of the
drubbing usually gives them away) that they are all just idiots!
This was the position in which I found myself, a position that anyone who
intends to put himself within reach of the public eye and ear, and thereby
propagate new and challenging ideas—or even just amusing aesthetic stunts—is
going to encounter. But I still hadn’t yet realized just how offensive and
objectionable a work Matrix Warrior was to some people. Surprisingly naive, you may say, considering that
the book aims to dismiss an entire civilization and a way of life as devoid
of any underlying purpose, meaning or value, to reveal it as a fraud and a
lie, and to expose its adherents (i.e., everyone) as slaves and dupes. What
I wasn’t ready for, however, was the manner in which those offended by the
book were to dismiss it, not as an objectionable, immoral, or tasteless work
(which would have been easy to take), but as a “soggy trout,” sloppily written,
ill-conceived, self-indulgent, egomaniacal, stupid, and boring!
Now you may say, if I already know none of this to be true, and if I really
believe in the book’s merits, why should I care what people say about it?
The book has come of age and entered into the world; surely it can now stand
on its own two feet without needing its proud pappy to stick up for it? But
in many ways, Matrix
Warrior was the author’s first child, and he simply wasn't
ready, at that time, for the kind of cruelty and ill-treatment it received
at the hands of a world which, after all is said and done, it was created
expressly to challenge. So all of this was simply part of his coming of age.
Though I wasn’t about to disown a work that I still felt great affection
for, nor was I going to go down fighting to defend its virtues. I wasn’t Marx,
and this wasn’t a Manifesto. It was a jaunty little joke of a book, a “Dear
John” letter to the world, finalizing our break-up, and I had no business
taking it so seriously. I decided there and then not to be “the One” anymore.
Let someone else do the job! Even the crappy Matrix Reloaded
suggested that Neo was just another trick by the matrix to keep us enslaved,
just part of the program. Whatever good teachers and gurus do, they probably
do more harm in the long run creating the impression they are superior to
everyone else. Look at Christianity. Worshipping Christ is no way to emulate
Him. If everyone is the One, then no one is the One. That includes me. Time
out.
The day after I announced my retirement (to a small group of fans, family
and friends), I received by purest coincidence an email from a fellow author,
informing me that he’d written and published a book called The One!
The One claimed to be a system of self-liberation based on the ideas
in the movie, complete with workshops. This latter, as it happened, was something
I had actually toyed with as a means for making some extra cash, offering
the red pill as part of a package tour to Guatemala: “Come and stay with the
One and see how deep the rabbit hole really goes!” Yada yada. Now,
of course, all such ideas were banished to the limbo of ego fantasy where
they belonged, and here was word from the matrix to confirm it. The day after
quitting my self-appointed office as Virtual World Savior (or Destroyer),
I had been replaced!
Had I received news of this (eerily similar) book a week earlier, I might
well have been righteously peeved at being so blatantly ripped off, not to
mention having to share the stage I had so meticulously built with someone
else. As it was, I was relieved and amused that the Universe had approved
my decision, in such unequivocal terms and so quickly. I had done my turn
on the Cosmic Catwalk of “Ones-to-be”; now was time to bow down to the competition.
Perhaps the trouble with Matrix Warrior
was that it came partly from the heart, somewhat from the gut, but almost
entirely from the head. In future, I’d rather reverse the balance. Haven’t
we seen enough of clever? Isn’t being clever what caused us to fall into this
Pit called Civilization to begin with? Another way of putting this would be
to say that Matrix Warrior is an overly
masculine approach to the problem. Its wit may be so subtle that many readers
don’t even spot it (save as sarcasm); but its message is about as discreet
as a hand grenade under the pillow. What most people need is definitely a
more feminine approach, the sly, seductive undermining of their security,
and some gentle, playful mockery of their self-importance.
In Blood Poets, I quoted Paul Bowles on the first rule of Surrealism
(i.e., artistic terrorism): “The way to attack is not to seem to be attacking.”
Matrix Warrior breaks
this basic rule, willfully and audaciously. It is a bold-faced attack on everyone
and everything. Since that is what the book was supposed to be (albeit disguised,
however inadequately, as satirical fiction/movie commentary), then it would
be absurd for me to wonder how things might have been had I done it differently
(and applied the more feminine, poetic, underhand method of attack). But what
is equally absurd is for me to have expected such a brazen, all-out assault
on humanity to be wholeheartedly swallowed up by its target, i.e., for the
book to become a best seller. This is what I mean by too much head (masculinity),
and not enough heart.
If there had been more of the nurturing feminine intuition at work, and
less of the analytical masculine intellect, then I might have realized how
harsh and brutal and offensive (and painful) Matrix
Warrior would be for a sizeable portion of its readers, readers
who were likely, even entitled, to react to such an attack with scorn, derision,
and suspicion at the author’s apparent coldness, his lack of compassion or
humility, and the all-too-effortless manner in which he trashed every last
one of their hard-won illusions.
None of this is meant as a retraction, or even an apology, for the statements,
opinions, and decrees found in Matrix Warrior.
Although the book as a whole can literally be called a “cheap shot,” I stand
by everything in it, taken in the right spirit (that of applying self-satire
in lieu of so-called “self-development”). What is intended by all of this
is merely a summation, specifically of the realizations undergone since the
book’s release, realizations caused firstly by the tanking of the sequels
and the subsequent fall-off of book sales, and secondly (though more crucially)
by first-hand exposure to the negative reactions of readers. It’s not so simple
as that I was dumb enough to launch an attack on culture and expect to get
rich into the bargain. It’s that I was, and remain, so deeply divided in myself
as to want (and expect) not only to get away with insulting people’s most
treasured values and illusions, but to be loved and commended for it! Did
schizophrenia ever lurk so deep in the psyche of an artist? Then again, did
it ever not?
*
Before I get to the ultimate intent behind both Matrix Warrior and this little companion piece,
let me share some of the divided responses with you.
Donna Jones calls the book “a soggy trout that no one
should read,” “about as pleasurable as sticking a sharpened pencil into your
thigh” (or a splinter in the brain?). Interestingly enough, the first “no-star”
review said the book gave the reviewer a headache! (Gary S. Dalkin) As Robert
Anton Wilson once wrote, “I assume, immodestly, that thinking was such an
unfamiliar chore to these reviewers that they found it painful.” (No pain
no gain, Gary? I wish you many headaches to come.)
Matrix Warrior was designed to offend “humatons,” and humatons, when offended, become
highly offensive in their turn. Julia Burns writes, “If everything in the movie were absolutely true, then Jake Horsley’s unofficial
handbook would be the indispensable guide to escaping the system. But it isn't,
so why has he written it?” If Julia
Burns knew everything there is to know about existence, her point would be
sound. Since she doesn’t, why has she made it? Since people don’t seem to
be able to recognize a joke when they see one, I shall have to be less subtle
in future.
Judging by these and other remarks, the book is some sort of mirror or
Rorschach blot in which the reader finds whatever he or she brings to it.
Since the book addresses a multitude of human follies—ones which the author
naturally has first-hand experience with—it is designed to push as many buttons
as it possibly can. Apparently, at this at least I succeeded. People had their
buttons pushed, all right, the only question was whether, like the author,
they enjoyed having their foibles exposed, or whether they did not (either
because they prefer to do it for themselves, or because they don’t want it
done at all). Those who do not enjoy being exposed staunchly object to any
attempt at all to remind them just how messed up they are. As Simon Spanton
put it, early on in our author/editor relationship (I am paraphrasing): “Anyone
who approves of the way the world is going is going to find plenty to object
to in this book.” I might add that anyone who has a problem laughing at themselves,
and at their flaws and hang ups, is going to have a very hard time laughing
at Matrix Warrior;
or, indeed, grokking it at all.
Besides a few, plainly middle-aged and middle-of-the-road critics, the
most vocal attacks on Matrix Warrior
came from young cyber-nerds who (in most cases) were dedicated devotees to
the movies, bloated and boring sequels included. (Yes, there exists a fairly
tight-knit community set up in defense of Reloaded and Revolutions!).
These lonely and doubtless romantically challenged individuals, strangely
enough, appeared as often as not to object to the book for the very same reasons
(or at least in roughly the same terms) as the older critics did, mocking
it as a badly written, easy cash-in, and a shameless ego trip soaked in holier-than-thou
superiority (and how dare he call us humatons!). Some of them even cited the
misspelling of the peripheral character Choi as “Troy” as evidence that the
author was a fraud (not being a true Matrix geek). Alas, to sink to
such an amoebic level of debate would be unduly taxing on my readers, so let
us leave these winsome masturbators and critics-to-be to their lonely holes,
and press on.
From the myriad opposing reactions to Matrix
Warrior, it becomes clear that, as many as see the book as “didactic,”
“turgid,” “humorless,” bitter, self-centered, lacking in compassion or originality,
and so forth, there exists an equal number who find the book quite enlightening
and even entertaining.
This division is pretty basic. The (moral) majority has no sympathy for
the book or its author, either as a tasteless and irreverent joke at everyone’s
expense, or as a sincere bit of instructional prose, “Zen fascism,” as SFX
called it. These folk are generally—with a few exceptions along the way—people
with whom the author imagines he has little in common, and no desire at all
to sustain any kind of lengthy contact, at all, at all. There is, or would
be, a mutual antipathy between them and himself, not to say outright hostility
(as mentioned before, I am inclined to dislike anyone who criticizes my ideas).
The author too is all-too-human, at this time.
The second, vastly smaller camp consists of those folk who, partially,
mostly, or entirely, grokked the book’s premise, appreciated its style of
delivery, shared its humor, respected and assimilated the ideas therein, and
enjoyed its overall message. These are people that the author would be happy
to encounter on neutral ground, to share the proverbial cuppa, swap ideas
and compare Weltanschauungs. In fact, as has slowly dawned upon me in the
year since the book was published, the primary reason for writing and unleashing
the work—besides my hope for a little easy cash—was to make contact with such
people. Matrix Warrior was a sort
of flare sent up in the dark night of the human soul, a signal sent out in
the dark sea of awareness to attract the attention of any kindred spirits
that might be likewise floating adrift on the self-same sea of uncertainty,
looking out for such a signal. And little by little—if the flare burns brightly
and long enough—we might by its light draw together in this night, and find
not just solace together but also a common purpose and direction, namely the
only one possible for the shipwrecked (who have cast ourselves off the burning
ship of Civilization): deliverance.
And there you have it, in a fittingly apocalyptic nutshell.
*
You cannot serve two masters. It’s either God or Mammon, the Muse or the
Mass, the lucid goal or the matrix. The irony of my original title, How
to Get Ahead in the Matrix Without Really Trying, was never lost on me.
What I intended was for the book to be its own proof, to be a living example
of the efficacy of the strategy which is was offering, i.e., it would be my
own personal way to get ahead in the matrix, to get rich on a mere two weeks
“work.” As we now know, it didn’t work out like that. I was either not as
smart as I thought I was, or else I was too clever for my own good.
The conscious and unconscious minds run on separate tracks. They work wholly
different agendas, and as often as not, those agendas are at odds. Because
I really believed in my book and its premise—that this world is an illusion
and we are all slaves to it—I couldn’t believe in its “supposed” selling point,
its gimmick, that of exploiting the situation for personal gain. Matrix
Warrior isn’t really about getting ahead in the matrix;
it’s about getting the hell out. And if its message could be boiled
down to purest essence (an essence that makes it so unpalatable to most folk),
then it would have all of nothing to do with personal gain.
The book’s deepest plea is for us to surrender the obsessions and trappings
of our self-serving egomania and hook into a deeper, wider, unimaginably vaster
agenda outside of the merely personal, that of the Universe beyond. But since
I was determined to conceal such a grandiose and presumptuous plea whatever
the cost, I concealed it even from myself. I really thought I was writing
Matrix Warrior to make an easy buck!
The problem with all so-called “spiritual” teachings or revelations throughout
history has always been humanity’s insistence on taking the messenger over
the message, on worshipping the wordsmith instead of taking stock of his words.
The world doesn’t want easy solutions to its problems (the world is
the problem). Since humanity refuses to see itself as the disease, it is never
going to acknowledge the need for a cure. In fact, since the cure is what
will bring about the world’s end, it is always going perceive any cure as
a virus to be resisted. Fitting then that, when all the dust and consternation
have settled, and the deafening silence that greeted my shameless and utterly
offensive joke-book has died down, the joke is seen to be on me. But, since
a poet’s unconscious intent is always going to be purer, truer, wiser
than anything his conscious mind can drum up, all of this is well and good,
and has come about exactly as was intended (not just by the Universe but by
me). I am not the best-selling author of the critically-acclaimed and
universally embraced Matrix Warrior.
Books sales exposed me as the sham I am. I am not that “One” at all, at all.
I am another kind of nobody, happy to thrive in anonymity. Darkness is my
element.
Jake Horsley,
May 2004