Why are Some Able to Break Out of the Matrix?

[vivosmith]

Why is it that we have been able to break out of our mental conditioning, while others flounder? Wa sit our upbrining? Dissillusionment? It seems like man can not be reduced to a theory as far as enslavement goes. But it really interests me. It seems we arecapable of such high reason as the Reformation and the Enlightenment, yet many time we waste it.Why is this? And why can't we as a so called society overcome this?

[cherapple]

There are benefits to not breaking out, like approval and monetary gifts and rewards from family, and social acceptance from friends and other people around you, which most people either don't want to or are afraid to give up. What we can do is be an example of the benefits of breaking out, by achieving success and happiness on our own. When we realize that the costs of taking the secondary benefits are greater than the costs of living for truth, we achieve change. It's achieved on a personal, person to person basis, and not by controlling or changing what anyone else does. 

[Pepin]

Summing it down to a single answer likely can't be done. There does seem to be some correlation in so far as personality type.

 

A primary factor in myself that has made me so easily accepting of these theories is that rationalization was a self-defense mechanism as a child. I had a great enough intelligence to understand logical and the various fallacies at a young age and would always apply them to my own thinking.

 

I really had a difficult time understanding propaganda because I couldn't make any sense of it. I assumed that what I was being told was true, but that there was something I wasn't understanding. I thought that there were better/real answers and explanations, but teachers and other authority figures were not teaching us them because children don't yet have the capacity to understand it. At the end of my high school career, I remember being quite disappointed thinking "that's it?".

[Kevin Beal]

Speaking personally, I never wanted to break out of the matrix (figuratively) until I had seen someone else do it and how happy they were as a result.

 

I've heard this sentiment before where someone was explaining that they don't ever remember feeling lonely because they never got the sense that there was something out there that they were missing out on. The same was true in my case. I experienced a pretty deep longing and loneliness when I realized that it was actually possible to live a life of freedom, having a mind of my own, having awesome relationships, doing the things I just didn't think were possible.

 

If I could be that free person that inspires another person to be free, then that would make me very happy. Pass it on so to speak.

 

Some people look at that free person as representing an opportunity, and others see them as an enemy (for reasons described above).

[cherapple]

For myself, I would say that my family gave me almost no secondary benefits to motivate me to stay in the matrix, so breaking out, when I finally did — which involved finally feeling the incredible pain of being given so little, and of having so much potential stolen from me — was not much of a stretch or sacrifice. When I realized that I might be able to recover, discover, or reawaken some of my potential, the pain of staying in the matrix became greater than the pain of getting out.

 

The cost of staying in the matrix is dissociation from the self. The benefit of getting out is self-connection. When people choose dissociation, their pain is suppressed and likely lifelong, but they are surrounded by people and have the illusion of being worthy and belonging. Self-connection, on the other hand, is a gift. You meet and begin to surround yourself with other self-connected people who don't want to live in delusion. The pain felt while in the matrix becomes a valuable signal and tool for breaking out and getting happy. 

[Kevin Beal]

I think like Cheryl and Pepin that the matrix is most fundamentally the result of family and early authority figures, and only as a consequence the statrix or religion.

 

I've noticed a trend among people in whatever stage of breaking out of the matrix, which may have more to do with me than anyone else, but I think it's generally true.

 

Stage 1: seems to be that most of us live childhoods that almost always involve a traumatic degree of indifference and denial thru abuse and / or neglect (some worse than others, obviously). In this stage we develop our defenses and our false self. If someone were not to experience this kind of childhood, I would imagine they skip right to stage 4, having no matrix to break out of.

 

Stage 2: seems to be where we develop an identity outside of the family matrix, still maintaining those defenses and relating to the world through our false selves. I think it's usually the case that this is a very cynical stage, seeing a lot of the pretentiousness of the authority figures around us. But instead of blaming individual people, we avoid that conflict by applying it universally. The implication being that I can't blame someone for being abusive if everyone is.

 

Stage 3: seems to be the make it or break it stage that follows some kind of catharsis, dark night of the soul. Where people either double down and cement themselves in their false self, making their defenses increasingly sophisticated and inflicting them on other people, or they start to see how their defenses aren't working for them and (as a consequence) how their relationships are toxic and how all of this needs to change.

 

If they choose the first option, they suffer, but not so much consciously because they are so dissociated, however it lasts the rest of their lives. If they choose the second and start to work on themselves they suffer pretty severely for a shorter period of time, but they become more connected with themselves as a result and are ultimately happier. I think that this is a place that really requires a good therapist.

 

Stage 4: seems to be a lifelong commitment to virtue, honesty, courage and attracting other virtuous people to them. They develop healthy relationships, and healthy true self ways of dealing with things. They are happier and fulfilled as human beings.

 

I think there are a number of people in the FDR community who are here (or close to it) and I'd love to hear their stories. I really appreciate that sort of thing, like the kind of stuff that Steven Summerstone talks about on his youtube channel (and others with their channels), and some of the great posts on the forums. And of course Stef's work around this sort of thing.

 

Stage 5: totally speculating, but maybe they are completely free of self attack and almost completely free of projection. Maybe they no longer have any false self? idk, but Daniel Mackler has some thought provoking thoughts on the general topic here and here.

 

Also the State and the Family series is good and relevant, I think:

89 – The State and the Family - Part 1: Babies

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/babies_and_the_state.mp3

 

90 – The State and the Family - Part 2: Toddlers

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/toddlers_and_the_state.mp3

 

91 – The State and the Family - Part 3: Latency

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/latency_and_and_the_state.mp3

 

92 – The State and the Family - Part 4: Adolescence

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/adolescence_and_the_state.mp3

[Stephen C]

Why is it that we have been able to break out of our mental conditioning, while others flounder? Wasit our upbrining? Dissillusionment? It seems like man can not be reduced to a theory as far as enslavement goes. But it really interests me. It seems we arecapable of such high reason as the Reformation and the Enlightenment, yet many time wewaste it.Why is this? And why can't we as a so called society overcome this?

I would like to hear your answers to these questions if you don't mind. 

[cynicist]

 

 

Why is it that we have been able to break out of our mental conditioning, while others flounder? Wasit our upbrining? Dissillusionment? It seems like man can not be reduced to a theory as far as enslavement goes. But it really interests me. It seems we arecapable of such high reason as the Reformation and the Enlightenment, yet many time wewaste it.Why is this? And why can't we as a so called society overcome this?

 

This is even more interesting to me in the context of siblings because the background is similar. These are good questions that I have pondered many times.

 

 

If they choose the first option, they suffer, but not so much consciously because they are so dissociated, however it lasts the rest of their lives. If they choose the second and start to work on themselves they suffer pretty severely for a shorter period of time, but they become more connected with themselves as a result and are ultimately happier. I think that this is a place that really requires a good therapist.

 

I agree that a therapist or another free person is necessary, otherwise it's like trying to find your way through darkness. You may feel a familiar texture or trip over something recognizable but it is hard to connect everything together and get a clear picture in the way someone outside of your head can. 

[Kevin Beal]

I agree that a therapist or another free person is necessary, otherwise it's like trying to find your way through darkness. You may feel a familiar texture or trip over something recognizable but it is hard to connect everything together and get a clear picture in the way someone outside of your head can. 

And also because we totally need second opinions. I can come up with stories all day long about what certain events mean, but I'm sometimes in completely the wrong ball park. Having someone with some serious self knowledge to have your back in that way is important. Someone who is aware of psychological phenomena, is aware of your history and is someone you trust.

 

I've known people to settle for gurus or self help workshops only to get a very superficial kind of help. I don't believe there is any real substitute for a trained psychotherapist.

[kalmia]

There are benefits to not breaking out, like approval and monetary gifts and rewards from family, and social acceptance from friends and other people around you, which most people either don't want to or are afraid to give up. What we can do is be an example of the benefits of breaking out, by achieving success and happiness on our own. When we realize that the costs of taking the secondary benefits are greater than the costs of living for truth, we achieve change. It's achieved on a personal, person to person basis, and not by controlling or changing what anyone else does.

Persnally, I did not see the approval, monetary gifts, rewards from family and social acceptance from friends and other people. Looking back, I think that if I had played their game sufficiently, I would have recieved some of this or at least the illusion of acceptance as only false self would have been accepted.

Summing it down to a single answer likely can't be done. There does seem to be some correlation in so far as personality type. A primary factor in myself that has made me so easily accepting of these theories is that rationalization was a self-defense mechanism as a child. I had a great enough intelligence to understand logical and the various fallacies at a young age and would always apply them to my own thinking. I really had a difficult time understanding propaganda because I couldn't make any sense of it. I assumed that what I was being told was true, but that there was something I wasn't understanding. I thought that there were better/real answers and explanations, but teachers and other authority figures were not teaching us them because children don't yet have the capacity to understand it. At the end of my high school career, I remember being quite disappointed thinking "that's it?".

This sounds a lot like me and my experience. I think a lot of my social anxiety came out of this. I grew up in a batshit crazy fundamentalist cult. I could understand logic, and desperately wanted to see the logical reasoning behind what they were asserting so confidently. I assumed it was true because they seemed so confident in their assertions. This lead me to think that I was missing some of the key information that the rest of the people were in on. Not only was I in a cult that was in many ways isolated from the outside, I was also isolated from those within the cult as I was not in on this information. I remember feeling EXTREMELY nervous when people would start talking Jesus and Bible stuff around me because I felt like I might be shown to not know some of this information that pulled it all together. I was born into this cult and grew up there, so I couldn't claim to not know. After getting away from these people more, I realized that it was all assertions, and they were only repeating false self phrases that identified themselves as part of the cult. I have noticed the parallels in the state. The courts are filled with people who speak with false confidence about things things that have no basis in reality. Those who are extorted from play the game with the supposed judge and his minions to gain false self approval. Deep down, they know it's all bullshit.

[In the belly of the beast]

I would echo some of the other posters and say that a combination of inborn personality traits (e.g., relentlessly asking "Why?", even if just as an unspoken thought) and a degree of social alienation could provide greater motivation to an individual for calling out many of the delusions that he or she is deriving minimal benefit from.

[MysterionMuffles]

Kevin thanks so much for the podcast shares. I was always interested in where it began, the whole concept of the state being an effect of the family. Something that just did not make sense to me for a long time till recently.

[vivosmith]

I would like to hear your answers to these questions if you don't mind. 

I seriously don't know. I grew up in a traditional home, and so I would figure that would lead to more conformity.  I was also home schooled, and moved every few years. I have settled down back in my home town for about 5 years, priorly I was in another town for 7. With my free time, I worked on learning stuff I found interesting. I really did not have any social connections, but not because I did not try. I also dealt with depression due to lack of friends, and had my father pass at 14., when we just moved back. Other than that, it seems very random.

[Lians]

It's very difficult to answer this question. If we could find objective traits that allow certain people to break out of the matrix, we'd be able to supercharge our effectiveness. I suspect that an inborn capacity for empathy and resilience in the face of evil have a lot to do with making the choice to "disconnect." I have very early memories of being shocked by people's brutality. I cherished and nurtured my hatred for people who tried to distort and destroy my genuine experience of reality.

 

Luck also has a lot do with it. A very empathetic neighbourhood girl would often take care of me after my mother gave birth to my sister. I was 2 or 3 years old at the time. I've always had warm memories of her and I suspect that she is the reason why a part of my true self was able to survive the endless attacks of this anti-reason world.

 

Having survived the torture of my early upbringing, I started looking for a place where I belonged. I tried with arts, sports, science and academia, but something always felt off regardless of my achievements. I felt like I was fighting an invisible beast all my life. No matter how many times it knocked me down, I always got back up. Philosophy, self-knowledge and this community were my only bastions of hope. They brought immense happiness in my life and gave form to that ugly and elusive beast. "This is it. This is where I belong. I can rest now."