The way things are, and the way they ought to be, most people need shit to escape reality.

Thinking about the way things ought to be is a way of escaping reality. It is a way from distracting us from the truth. A person who is enlightened or accepts the redpill is not scared of reality, instead of talking about how things ought to be, they figure out how can they use their present circumstances to their advantage.

The movie Platoon has many redpill truths but put in a bluepill wrapper. It is a form of bait and switch, so show the viewer the nasty cold harsh reality of life. Then at the end, make it so the bluepill guy wins. The reality is this never happens. If you look at religion, the same scenario happens. Provide some redpill truths, then do a switch. Oliver Stone the director of Platoon was a Vietnam vet, the movie itself is a semiautobiographic account of his time in Vietnam. But at the end, Stone does a switch, he changes the movie to how we would like it to turn out.

The movie itself takes place in Vietnam and the plot is being narrated by Private Chris Taylor. Intially he attempts to make sense of the chaos instead of just accepting the chaos. This is a natural tendency of humans, we try and avoid chaos and seek stability. The movie then centers around two main characters, Sgt Elias and Sgt Barnes. All good stories must have a good guy, and a bad guy. In this case, Sgt Elias is the good guy and Sgt Barnes is the bad guy. Intestingly enough, it is Elias that is portrayed as the good guy, and Barnes who is portrayed as the bad guy.

Barnes summs up the situation in Vietnam with this profound statement.

Sgt. Barnes: Talking about killing? Y’all experts? Y’all know about killing? I’d like to hear about it, potheads.
[takes pipe and inhales drag]

Sgt. Barnes: Why do you smoke this shit? So as to escape from reality? Me, I don’t need this shit. I am reality. There’s the way it ought to be. And there’s the way it is. Elias was full of shit. Elias was a crusader. Now, I got no fight with any man who does what he’s told, but when he don’t, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain’t gonna allow that in any of you. Not one.

Sgt. Barnes: Y’all love Elias. Oh, you wanna kick ass. Yeah. Well, here I am, all by my lonesome, and ain’t nobody gonna know. Six of you boys against me. Kill me. Huh. I shit on all of you.

As Barnes bluntly puts it, he does not need this shit, because he can look reality in the eye. But then he is actually describing two ways people escape reality. The first way is fairly obvious, the potheads smoke pot to escape reality. But Elias is also escaping reality, except he does it by attempting to put meaning on something where there is no meaning. Barnes then shows the type of shit which Elias is smoking when he says.

There’s the way it ought to be. And there’s the way it is.

This is the crux of the matter. The moment we see something disrupts our illusion of the world, we will say well it ought to be like this. But the moment we say it ought to be like this, we are attempting to place our illusion ontop of reality.

How does the enlightened or redpill man view reality ?

Barnes knows his role in the entire scheme of things, he is capable of self honesty. He accepts that he is part of larger system of things or machine as he calls it. In this case his role is to help keep his part of the system going.

Don’t lie to yourself claiming your motives are noble when they are not

Both Elias and Barnes both have the same goal, they want the platoon to survive. Ultimately the reason is as Barnes puts it, if the machine breaks down we are all going to die. For Barnes he is honest with himself, his main motive to keep the machine going to ensure his own survival. The only person Barnes cares about is himself. By contrast Elias feels the need to justify himself, he needs to be a crusader. But within the story, Elias is the good guy while Barnes is the bad guy. But despite being the bad guy, the platoon has a greater chance of survival then with Elias.

The fight is internal not external

Chris Taylor: [voiceover] I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days as I’m sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul. There are times since, I’ve felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.

At the end of the movie, Chris Taylor kills Barnes which satisfies the audience who wants to escape reality. This satisfies the audience’s bluepill sense of karma or justice. But then the director contradicts himself. He describes both Elias and Barnes as his two fathers. So the struggle which Oliver Stone is an internal one, reality is chaos, and yet within this chaos we escape reality by attempting to pretend there is meaning to the chaos.

And it ultimately comes down to this.

I am reality. There’s the way it ought to be. And there’s the way it is.

Human beings myself included, want reality to conform to our illusion of the world. Unfortunately we can not change reality to fit our illusion. Intestingly enough a person who uses chemical means to keep his illusion up is viewed by society as a bad person. But meanwhile a person who maintains this illusion by lying to himself isn’t viewed in the same manner. A common lie might be the concept of karma, the belief that there is some sort of cosmic force which administers justice. This is highly attractive since it means a person is able to benefit without actually doing anything.

The most dangerous lies are the ones that are reframed.

The concept of karma can take many forms, which do not appear to be karma but they actually are. The downfall of civilization myth is a common one, usually the story follows this narrative. Women who are taking unfair advantage of the institution of marriage will cause civilization to collapse. Boy will they be sorry. Possibly the might cause civilization to collapse, but already this has been happening for the last 40 plus years. So many of the women will be already dead if and when society collapses. If we remove the reframing it is a form of karma.