The Question Drives Us

Last night I saw ‘The Matrix’ (one of my all time favorites) for the fourth time. And each time I watch it, one scene never fails to grab me by the soul; the scene where Trinity whispers into Neo’s ears, “I know why you are here, Neo. I know why you live alone and that you hardly sleep. I know what you are searching for, Neo. It is the question. You know the question, don’t you, Neo?” Neo says, “What is the Matrix?”
“Yes. It is the question that drives us. It is the Question that drives us, Neo.”

Cut to New York, Dec. 28, 2002.
As I stood on Times Square on that cold December night, I realized more than I ever did, that reality and unreality can both exist simultaneously in the same space and time. Standing alone, engulfed by the gigantic moving images, neon signs, advertisements, flashy retail stores and restaurants, I got a strange feeling that I was not for real, that I was the unreality amidst the ‘reality’ created by light. I even felt a slight sense of apology sneak up on me. The bombardment of neon lights and sounds had a sort of numbing effect on my senses. I floated or drifted in this immense sea of surrealistic urban space, and felt its hangover for many days.
Now, the question is not whether this is good urban design or not. The Question is, ‘Is this Aesthetics?’
The dictionary defines ‘Aesthetics’ as the ability of something to stimulate your senses. On the other hand, ‘unaesthetic’, is simply something that does not have that quality. But when you look up ‘Anesthetics’, (now, here is the twist) it is defined as having the ability to numb your senses (remember anesthesia?). Aesthetic. Unaesthetic. Anesthetic. Chew on it a bit.

Probably this is the point where the modern world of advertising and marketing encroach upon the reality of man, using architecture as the magic wand, making him buy things he doesn’t really need, with money he doesn’t really have, to impress people who don’t really care! And to think that architecture has such a big hand in creating this hypnotic trance.

Today, where the line between reality and unreality is blurring faster than you think, and everything considered unreal in the past seems an obvious reality now, where good and bad and beautiful and ugly have interchangeable meanings, we should make sure that we are asking the right questions and that the right questions are being asked of us.

Italo Calvino sums it up in his book ‘Invisible Cities’, “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours. Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer, like Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx.”

It is the Question that drives us, Neo ……