The Matrix

This scene in The Matrix has become iconic. Morpheus offers Neo the choice between a red pill and blue pill, saying “You take the blue pill, the story ends, and you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes”. Neo takes the red pill, and is awakened to reality – hence the term, “being red-pilled”. This concept has become massively meaningful in my life. My “red pill” experience was not instantaneous, but was more like a snowball gaining momentum as it rolled down a slope over a few years. It grew and accelerated until it became a new reality for me. The outcome is that I realize that we require a paradigm shift in order to take back the power in our lives. The shift has two parts: 1) recognize that the systems that run our nation do not have our best interests in mind and 2) I should not accept anything based on its being common practice.

In other words, don’t just go along with what we are told. A lot of people experienced some

level of paradigm shift reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic. I was one who did everything we were told would be helpful. I didn’t see why anybody would object to wearing a mask,

distancing, quarantining, isolating, and even getting vaccinated. But retrospective consideration makes it clear that very little of what we were told was accurate, and we were manipulated. There are a number of strategies that were employed to “flatten the curve” that don’t seem to have helped, and probably caused harm – for example, requiring young children to wear masks at school and day care at a point in their lives where they are supposed to be developing their speech. There also were a number of strategies that were NOT used that should have been. For example, we should have encouraged people to get vitamin D by spending time outdoors when the weather was nice, and by taking supplements when it was not. And encouraging physical activity (which improves immune health) should have been a priority as well. And while it’s fair to say we didn’t know for sure what would and wouldn’t work, there are some things that the authorities DID know that were not reflected in their recommendations (often mandates).

Fast forward to 2024, and I’m willing to investigate any common practice. Drinking water from a plastic bottle that was exposed to sunlight in my car? Not anymore. Eating deli meats

containing nitrates and nitrites? Not for me. Using sunscreen containing more than a dozen

ingredients that the FDA doesn’t recognize as safe (GRAS)? No, thank you. The problem is

that I could list more than a hundred practices I’ve changed. It’s not that drinking out of a plastic bottle once is going to harm me. But doing it daily, in addition to dozens of other “common practices” can cause toxins to acculuate in my body that can promote metabolic syndrome, disrupt the endocrine system, decrease fertility, increase the risk of cancer, etc. I’m not going back to those old habits, and I’m driven to share with others how they can make decisions that can help them clear toxins, therefore making them feel better, think more clearly, get better sleep, function better, etc. My wake up call was feeling that I had been fooled, and it was intentional, and it was malevolent, and it was manipulative. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and I’m not really paying attention, am I? So it’s time for us to question common practice. No more GMO foods for me, because I don’t want to ingest glyphosate. I’m going to eat a lot of eggs because they’re full of nutrition, and the USDA now acknowledges that dietary cholesterol does not cause atherosclerosis. I’m filtering my drinking water because I don’t want to drink BPA, phthalates and heavy metals. And there is no way I’m eating anything with high fructose corn syrup, which is probably the top contributor to metabolic syndrome, which increases risk for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

I know this is countercultural – this is what it takes when what’s normal in culture is harmful for us. The reason I’m reconsidering so many common behaviors and viewpoints is that I believe this is what will maintain quality of life for me and my family. I don’t intend to live forever, but however long I live, I want those years to be GOOD years. I don’t want to develop chronic disease that leads me to weekly doctors appointments over years of steadily declining health. I want to be a blessing to others rather than burdening them with my declining health. I want to be able to move well and sleep well and think clearly! The paradigm shift to reconsider what “normal” means is leading me to make the right decisions for myself and my family. Nobody can do that for me but me.