“I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change…I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries; a world where anything is possible.”
These are the final words of Keanu Reeve’s role as Neo from the 1999 blockbuster hit, “The Matrix.” The film, directed by Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski, is an action sci-fi feature that depicts a dystopian future in which reality, as perceived by most humans, is actually a simulated reality known as “the Matrix,” created by evil machines to subdue the human population. While the concept of this movie seems prominently fake and unlikely, millions of individuals across the world believe in a realistic concept that isn’t too far from what is depicted in “The Matrix.” Many ideas about end-time prophecies, conspiracy theories, and anti-government theologies are quickly tossed out and deemed as silly or foolish. However, there is substantial evidence to prove that something much larger than what we can see is happening behind the scenes in our own matrix.

If a child is born into slavery, but is told his entire life that he is free, would he not believe that he is free? We live in a country with many freedoms, such as the right to bear arms, the ability to live where we want, be what we want, and for the most part, marry who we want. Does this really mean that we are free though? We spend the most detrimental years of our lives in school, sitting there and listening to whatever we are told. Even though we have teachers and thick textbooks, we aren’t provided with other tools that show us that what we are taught is the real truth. We then graduate and are forced to either spend a ton of money going to college to further our education (because evidently thirteen years isn’t enough to prepare the youth for a successful future) or to start working immediately, because work = money = freedom. This logic doesn’t line up. Many individuals around the world have come to believe that those in power don’t really care at all about what’s best for the citizens that those in power are governing. To take this even further, millions of people believe that the government is plotting against us, and that the disasters we’ve experienced- such as terrorist attacks like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing, as well as the incline in obesity and the economic troubles we are dealing with is not at all an accident, but planned out and deliberate. Along with this, it is believed that behind the government is an evil elite made up of thirteen wealthy families that have their hands in 95% of global industry. This idea a conspiracy theory known as the Illuminati, or the New World Order.