Last night was one of those “slow” nights, so I watched the movie “Interstellar” again. Once again I found it to be rather silly, with extremely questionable (usually wrong) “physics” used to back up a rather confusing story line. However, there was a short little scene that caught my attention. It was the scene where the hero is rebuilding his friendly robot. He was setting the “pre-set levels” for various attributes, including the level for “humor.” He started with a high setting close to “10” on the scale. The robot responded with a rather subtle, sarcastic, non-funny joke. The hero didn’t like that, so he set the level down to 5.5, getting a knock-knock joke. That seemed too low of a setting, so I think he moved it up a notch (at least I would have done that). He was setting other pre-sets for things like affection, chattiness, etc. It was a humorous scene, one that I almost missed.

However, I woke in the middle of the night with some really odd thoughts about how this might apply to us humans. I lay there in bed thinking about what if we were controlled by “apps” downloaded from outside, perhaps from some version of “The Matrix?” What if I got app v3.4 for “love,” with a setting of 6? What if my partner got the v3.7 version with a setting of 5? Would this explain the sometime mysterious misalignment with our conversations and our understanding of our “proper” respective roles? Would this make her “too” social, or perhaps me “too” demanding?

At first this seemed to just be the outcome of some rather odd, and now forgotten, dream. But perhaps it is closer to the truth than I imagined.

It seems apparent that many, perhaps most, of our understanding of “how things should be” come from outside influences generated by things such as “society” norms, parental guidance (and scoldings), opinions of friends, teachers, our spiritual leaders, music, books and many other sources. These rather random inputs coalesce into something similar to a version of an “app” for life. If we happen to live in an isolated, stable, social situation there is a pretty good chance that both my partner and myself have the same version of a particular “app,” maybe even with similar pre-set settings. This would result in a wonderfully “free” relationship where we both seamlessly agreed with each other because our beliefs are the same. I could do anything that I “wanted to” and it would be “accepted” by my partner. I wouldn’t necessarily be free to do anything, just anything that I want to do because I would only “want” to do what she also “wants” me to do. Totally accepting the confines of one’s situation means freedom – you never come up against the boundaries.

Unfortunately, the real world is not a uniform set of “rules” – society is governed by a mixed, inconsistent, incompatible set of rules, mores, morals and guidelines – including descriptions of what we “should” want, and not want, to do. It is as if we have many “apps” available that might get activated differently when needed. It is sort of like the three versions of “solitaire” that I loaded on my phone. Sometimes I want a “traditional” looking version, so I load that one. At other times I might be feeling more whimsical so I load one with cartoons and music clips. Each might also be set with different pre-sets, so one deals every card and another deals three cards at a time. They are similar, cover similar needs, but are actually quite different. It sometimes feels that way to me. Sometimes I happen to be quite tolerant to other people’s foibles, at other times I am sometimes quite intolerant – becoming frustrated and perhaps even angry. In retrospect it is quite difficult to determine exactly what happened to cause the change. Perhaps some “setting” launched one app instead of the other.

This line of thinking brings me to a rather optimistic, but confusing conclusion. It seems that many of my “reactions” originate from somewhere “outside” of myself. They came from things that I learned from others and decided to accept as my own. I didn’t make them up, I just elected to use them. Maybe I can elect to use a different set of “apps”, ones that more closely align with what I want. Perhaps I can reload some of them and do a bit of a system “re-boot.” If these apps came from the outside I don’t have to have pride of “authorship” – they were generous offerings from others, but perhaps they aren’t working so great. Maybe I can change my mind – maybe I can find freedom by more closely aligning my “apps” with what I want to be.

I am not proposing that there is any “outside entity” downloading our programming as is depicted in movies such as “The Matrix,” but I am proposing that something similar happens to all of us as we grow up and go through life. It seems that generally we have very little to say about the “programming” that we receive from our “teachers” (including everyone that is important to us). We learn what it means to be “good” in our social contexts – and usually agree with the suggestions. However, when these definitions are in conflict, or when we fail to comply, we tend to judge ourselves quite badly – even though we have actually done nothing wrong.

I am convinced that there is a sliver of a chance of changing that situation in important ways. I think we can learn to see ourselves and our actions more clearly, from a point of view that is much closer to the person that we want to be. Since we have many inconsistent and conflicting points of view, why not choose another more consistent one that matches our desired point of view. Why chose one at all? Maybe we can stay present “in the moment” and be flexible enough to make the right choices at the time that they need to be made instead of depending upon old, outdated, and wrong templates gathered willy nilly in the past. Maybe we can learn to choose “the path with heart” instead of just crashing though life in a thoughtless, and painful, way.

I suggest that while there are many “teachings” (such as some flavors of Buddhism) that can help us to find a new, less painful path – they are only guides for self-discovery. They can not be relied upon to provide a detailed path for us, we need to explore and find that for ourselves. It is comforting for me to understand that I have been “programmed” by many outside events and teachers who knew not what they were teaching, and that I have the choice to find my own path to a life of my choosing.