The Matrix and the Cosmic Joke
...and the four types of people navigating it all
People love The Matrix analogies, especially in Western, upper-middle-class circles. The notion that we’re governed by invisible scripts—social norms, expectations, and pressures—resonates deeply. These “programs,” like the code in the movie, dictate our paths, and many of us yearn to break free, to find our own Zion. But what does freedom mean? For some, it’s financial independence, a ticket to escape the grind. For others, it’s a transcendent state, abandoning man-made constructs like wealth, status, or even identity itself. After all, wealth dissipates—misallocated, taxed, or diluted by the second or fourth generation. So why chase it?
Then there’s Office Space. Peter, hypnotized into rebellion, stops playing by the rules and finds an odd kind of peace. But he didn’t actually “wake up.” He traded one trance for another. So what’s real? The hustle of careerism or going rogue? Is there even a way out? Which is normal—adhering to the system or going against the grain like some “weirdo”?
I’ve wrestled with these questions for years, tinkering with frameworks in my mind.
Here’s my ultimate synthesis, a deep dive using the Matrix analogy—a layered model of reality and the people navigating it.
The Tram: A Metaphor for Society
Imagine you’re born yesterday, a fully formed adult. You meet your family, observe their ways, and adopt them because it’s all you know. Stepping outside, someone hands you a tram ticket: “This is how you get around.” The tram zips along fixed tracks through a city, stopping at places like College Ave, Suburban Street, Corner Office Park, Prestige Mall, Florida Boulevard. Everyone you know is on board, most scrolling their phones, oblivious to the stops until a ping signals their destination, and they disembark.
This tram is a simulation—a construct of society’s expectations, built by humans for a specific time and place. It’s governed by “The Matrix,” a deeper script of debatable origin that dictates its speed, route, and schedule. The tracks are the prescribed path, the “correct” way to align with this code.
Can you step off? Sure, at your designated stop. But what about a different stop? That’s trickier—you’re off course, expending effort to get back. And what if you pull the emergency brake, halting the tram mid-route? You might jolt your fellow passengers, get banned from the tram, or find yourself lost in unfamiliar territory.
Step off, and you’re in the city itself—the “real world.” It’s gritty, unforgiving, a jungle where wood has been swapped for concrete, canopies for skyscrapers. You need food, so you trade something. You see an ad, feel desire. Another ad reminds you of rent or bills. The prescription is simple: stick to your tram stop, do what you were taught. You were born yesterday—did you forget already?
But there’s more beyond the city. At a higher elevation, a few people live, hearing the distant squeak of tram wheels, seeing the city’s glow at night. They laugh, viewing it all as a grand cosmic joke, and they’re savoring every minute.
This is the real Matrix—a layered reality inhabited by four types of people: unconscious NPCs (non-playable characters), performative NPCs stuck in limbo, Agents roaming the city, and Architects who see through it all.
Level 1: The Tracks of Belief (Software)
You’re born in a Western, upper-middle-class suburb, a blank slate. By adolescence, you’ve downloaded a hard drive’s worth of cultural “software”—beliefs so ingrained they feel like gravity or biology. Immutable. Invisible. This is Level 1, the mental Matrix, the green code cascading down the screen.
Here’s some of that code, in no particular order—programs that shape the tram’s route:
Normalcy and Routine: Wake up, work, retire on schedule. Deviate, and you’re a risk-taker at best, a weirdo at worst.
Destiny and Expectations: Others’ expectations define your self-worth and identity.
Prestige and Status: Some people are “better” for intangible reasons.
Careerism: Your job is your soul. Love it or pretend you do.
Time is Money: Idleness is wasteful.
Money as Power, Comfort, Tangibility: Money equals success, buys leisure, and exists as numbers you trust but never see.
Material Wealth and Legacy: Wealth ensures your bloodline’s success, ignoring its inevitable dilution or loss.
Meritocracy: Work hard, win big. Ignore systemic barriers or luck.
Credentialism: No degree, no legitimacy.
Consumerism: Happiness is a new purchase or experience.
Individualism: You’re special—be more special.
Nuclear Family Norms: One “right” way to live—mom, dad, kids, picket fence.
Attractiveness Standards: Thin, young, symmetrical is desirable.
Patriotism/Loyalty: Your tribe is best; questioning it is taboo.
Religion: A higher power governs, with fixed rules for behavior.
Inevitability of Progress: The world improves, and you must contribute, however indirectly.
These are the tram’s instructions, laid down by history, economics, media, and your childhood dinner table. Most people—unconscious NPCs (UNPCs)—ride without question. They chase the job, buy the thing, feel good, because the tram is warm, safe, and crowded. They’re the “regular people” in The Matrix, living the script.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these beliefs—except when they’re followed blindly, uploaded into you without scrutiny.
NPCs and the Agency Problem
UNPCs aren’t dumb. Many are high-IQ, acing tests or climbing corporate ladders. But they’re on autopilot, never questioning the tram’s route. Why would they? Society rewards them with raises, accolades, and dreams they’re told to want. They jump through hoops with grace but don’t ask why the hoops exist.
This lack of agency—failing to ask, “Is this tram going where I want?” or “Is this city even for me?”—defines them. An NPC might score a perfect 1600 but never ponder what it’s for. They’re hoop-jumpers, unaware of the game.
Contrast this with agentic individuals—Agents—who see the tracks as human-made, not divine. They might ditch the 9-to-5, go minimalist, or question beauty standards. Agency is waking up in the Matrix and tasting the steak’s code. But there’s a painful middle ground: performative NPCs (PNPCs), who see the code but keep eating the steak anyway.
Mobile Ave: The Limbo of Performative NPCs
In The Matrix: Revolutions, Mobile Ave is a train station between realities, a limbo controlled by the Trainman. Neo gets trapped there, exiled by the Merovingian, unable to return to the Matrix or the real world. He sits on a bench, watching trains pass, stuck for eternity.
Performative NPCs live in this limbo. They see the tram’s code, know their lives are built on arbitrary rules, but stay on board. The Trainman—ego, fear, debt, social pressure—won’t let them off. They clutch their ticket, hearing the train to freedom but never boarding.
Picture a banker or lawyer at a top firm, or someone in a family business, expected to follow a path they hate. The job drains them, a Level 1 game of prestige and expectations, but they stay, faking enthusiasm at meetings or posting “proud to announce” on LinkedIn while screaming inside. Quitting means admitting a decade was wasted (ego), risking social status (fear), or losing the house (reality). This is conscious pretense—worse than the UNPC’s ignorant bliss or the Agent’s freedom.
Examples of PNPCs in Mobile Ave:
Consumerism: They see designer stuff as wasteful but buy them to fit in, posting on Instagram, hating themselves.
Religion: They doubt their church’s dogma but attend to avoid family drama, reciting prayers with a grimace.
Careerism: They know their corporate job is hollow but fake passion for the next bonus or healthcare.
Mobile Ave is dissonance city. UNPCs enjoy the tram’s perks—new car, corner office—because they believe it’s real. Agents ditch the tram to navigate the city’s streets. PNPCs are stuck, performing in a show they despise, unable to savor the perks or walk away. They’re like Cypher, craving the steak but unable to forget it’s fake. No ignorance, no bliss.
Level 2: The Concrete Jungle (Hardware)
Pull the e-brake and hop off the tram. Welcome to Level 2: the city itself, the Matrix’s Zion. It’s gritty, real, and full of non-negotiable realities—physics (you need shelter), biology (you need food), anthropology (laws exist), geography (cities limit movement), economics (money buys necessities). Unlike Level 1’s malleable beliefs, Level 2 is hardware, unyielding no matter how “awake” you are.
This concrete jungle explains why PNPCs stay in Mobile Ave. Quitting the firm sounds liberating until you realize money doesn’t grow on trees. Even Agents—those who reject Level 1’s scripts—can’t vanish into the hills. In ancient times, you might homestead on the frontier (until raiders or plague got you). Today, good luck living off-grid without permits, Wi-Fi, or exposure to society’s viruses. The city’s infrastructure—supermarkets, hospitals, banks—makes opting out nearly impossible. You’re free to roam, but you’re still in the jungle, unprotected.
Agents navigate creatively, bending the rules after deleting some Level 1 code.
They might:
Downsize: Live in a smaller home, rethink expectations, stop chasing material goods.
Build independent income: Ditch the 9-to-5 for consulting, content creation, or small business ownership.
Relocate: Move to a cheaper city or country, stretching their resources.
But Agents are still bound by Level 2’s foundational realities. Like Agent Smith in The Matrix, desperate to escape yet tethered to the system, they need food, healthcare, and some income. The city’s streets aren’t tram tracks, but they’re not a free-for-all. Taxes, illness, or bad luck can derail even the most agentic. Agents are powerful but not omnipotent.
Agents: Only Half-Unplugged
Agents appear as confident entrepreneurs, digital nomads, minimalists, or independently wealthy folks—blogging about “less is more” or RV-ing with their kids. But “appear” is the key word. You see them, hear them, because they’re still tethered to the city. They’ve shed much of Level 1’s coding but not all. They rely on NPCs for their living, need money, and crave creature comforts. The world remains real, not a dream.
Many Agents also cling to ego-driven notions of success, just in their own way. Their “unplugging” can transmogrify into a need to proselytize, to validate their path through attention or followers. They’re still in the game, chasing Level 1 desires like status or identity, even if subtly.
Examples:
Evangelizing: A digital nomad’s YouTube channel, “How I Escaped the Matrix,” isn’t just sharing—it’s preaching for likes, validation, or ad revenue.
Risk-Flexing: A former banker buys a small business to “be their own boss” but hosts a “founder” podcast to build a personal brand.
Superiority Complex: Entrepreneurs or nomad families post “We’re free!” on Instagram, swapping one identity (corporate drone) for another (rebel). Free from what? The need for social approval?
Nomadism, entrepreneurship, minimalism—these are mini-Matrices, new tram routes in the city. Freer, yes, but still constructed. In The Matrix, unplugged humans could plug into a “construct” to taste the Matrix’s pleasures—kung-fu, steak, fantasy. Agents are similar, hopping between the city and their own curated scripts. Morpheus believed he was chosen, leading his people to revolution, yet still craved meaning within the system. Agent Smith wanted escape but also power. Agents are NPCs-turned-agentic, navigating the jungle but still reliant on its basics—and often seeking validation, unlike those beyond the city limits.
Level 3: Beyond the City Limits
Enter Level 3, a mental state, not a place—a realm of near-complete philosophical abstraction inhabited by real people. Let’s call them Architects. They exist in the world, needing food and shelter, but secure these in ways intolerable to Agents or NPCs. They see the city, the tram, even reality itself as an illusion, a temporary arrangement of molecules and forces.
Architects might walk the city or ride the tram occasionally, but they prefer the frontiers, mentally or physically distant from the jungle. They view hunger, taxes, and ego as transient, part of a cosmic ruse. This isn’t as crazy as it sounds—centuries-old traditions align with this perspective:
Buddhism: The city’s empty, a fleeting illusion. Hunger’s a sensation, not a crisis.
Monasticism: The world’s divine theater. Your job’s a cosmic doodle.
Materialism: You’re dust, the city’s dust—particles in flux, no meaning required.
Chaotic Acceptance: Life’s absurd. Dance through the city, unconcerned.
Taoism: Flow with the river. Struggle is the only mistake.
Absurdism: Scream into the void. Laugh at the echo.
Simulation Theory: The city’s code. Hunger’s a glitch, taxes an in-game mechanic.
Stoic-Existentialism: Control what you can. Observe the city, don’t become it.
Postmodern Irony: It’s all fake. Play along, half-sincere, fully aware.
Architects break the fourth wall, acknowledging the transient absurdity of existence. They write their own code, dancing to their own tracks for no reason other than the world’s there to experience. They act—eat, work, love—without attachment to Level 1 narratives or even Level 2’s physical constructs.
Invisibility of Architects
You’ll rarely spot an Architect in the wild, or recognize them if you do. They don’t evangelize, post on social media, or feel special. Ego is just another tram track. In The Matrix, they’re Neo at his peak, bending reality, seeing the “fiery orange” code even in the real world. They might be:
A retired physicist tending roses on a quiet Tuesday.
A valedictorian turned ski patroller helping you in the Alps.
A janitor-poet writing for no one.
A solitary traveler who doesn’t post photos.
A successful executive or entrepreneur who vanishes, not because they had to, but because it all felt silly.
Contrast this with the influencers shouting about “escaping the Matrix” or minimalist hacks. Those are Agents, half-unplugged, waving their flags high. Their ego tethers them to identity—“I’m the one who got out”—and the need to convert you. NPCs dominate tram stops and neighborhoods, Agents the streets and media. Architects write rules only they understand, truly free, untethered.
The Journey Between Levels
This framework explains why we conform (Level 1), why some see the code but freeze (Mobile Ave), why others roam but still pose (Agents), and why the freest don’t care if you notice (Architects). Western, upper-middle-class life—its trams, bills, and likes—makes Level 1 seductive, Mobile Ave crushing, Level 2 alluring, and Level 3 elusive, requiring a wholesale rewiring of your worldview.
Here’s one path through the levels:
UNPCs: Ask a real question—“Why do I want this job or house?”—to glimpse Level 1’s code.
PNPCs: Take a real action—cut an expense, try a side hustle—to leave Mobile Ave for Level 2.
Agents: Let go of the flag. Stop posting “I’m free.” Meditate, read Buddha, let ego fade to reach Level 3.
Architects: Build systems for basic needs—diverse income, alternative education, geographic flexibility, low-cost joy. Write your own track and dance to it.
Where Are You?
Most of us are on the tram, stuck in Mobile Ave with restless leg syndrome, or Agents lingering by the phone, craving ego hits or luxuries. Reaching Architect—truly detached from desires, even the subtle need for approval from friends or family—may require going AWOL, fully “out there.” But if you get there, will you care? You probably won’t even think about it.
The truth is, you don’t need to escape. You just need to see. And when you do, maybe you won’t care that you did. The Matrix is real—but it’s also the joke.
