Amongst the happiest people are those that believe ignorance is bliss. This state of mind allows certain individuals to look at their lives through the lens of a photographer’s camera, and they are thus able to see only what they want to see or what is useful to them. However, beyond this pragmatic approach exists a spontaneous desire to know, and know what is true. And as this vision is gradually produced, a natural desire to realize one’s role is also attained. Sometimes, the only path to knowledge is to take risks, regardless of the situation, and this is the same path many scholars, philosophers and influential leaders have taken, often impulsively. I am among those who accept the bitter truth over a sweet lie due to a sense of despondence within curiosity. As a victim of human nature itself, I would take the red pill if I were in the situation of Neo.
To begin, I would choose the red pill due to the lack of comfort that exists within not knowing something. Aristotle once said that, “all men by nature desire to know.” Not only men, one can suppose that many species desire to know, including the cat that died at the hands of curiosity. This sense of curiosity or the unknown cannot be simply contained. Throughout my life, I am equally puzzled and amused by the number of instances where a label forbidding or warning me to specifically not do something will prompt me to go ahead and do so. For instance, after reading a sign at a museum which says do not touch, I will feel the urge to touch the object. Perhaps this can be explained by the curiosity or desire to know what effect this may have. However, it can also be described in terms of human psychology. Amsterdam, a city where smoking marijuana is legal has one of the lowest percentages of population who engage in the act of doing so. Likewise, on the Autobahn, a highway with no more standardized speed limit, drivers will generally drive with more caution, on speeds averaging 90 km, lower than the highway limit in Ontario. Based on this idea, if I were in this situation, I would be in dire need to what reality is since I know the blue pill would simply allow me to continue living life the way I already know it. By putting up the idea that another reality exists, the situation becomes very much like the museum analogy where a risk becomes rather desirable. And by being given the option of the red or blue pill, the actual reality becomes part of the concepts one knows they don’t know a different knowledge in comparison to the initial state, where one didn’t know something they didn’t know. Plato describes that one’s soul is in a prison, and attempts to peer out at reality through the bars, in order to escape. Overall, curiosity is an uncontrollable state in which the individual desires to know what is unknown.
