To Break Free
Fallout, the TV series, kinda grew up on me. I mean, underneath, it's the same story that Hollywood appears to be pushing on us with increased urgency -- the story of self-discovery, of waking up to the truth... What truth? -- that you are a slave Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch... a prison for your mind.
Of course, it didn't start with Hollywood. In the 5th century BC an Ancient Greek philosopher Plato was already telling a Matrix-like story, the Allegory of the Cave. It's about people who were born in a cave, and who refuse to leave even after being told that there is this amazing world outside. They stay put because the cave is all they know, and because they have invested so much into making life in there. It's the so-called "sunk cost fallacy" that, among other things, keeps them from leaving.
Fallacies like this comprise the "prison for your mind" -- the system of often false, harmful beliefs imprinted on us by society, by our parents... because our parents didn't know any better either. It determines our values, the way we live our lives. And we keep replicating the same beliefs on our children's minds, despite the enormous cost... We do it because it makes it so hard for anyone to break free from this bondage. As a rule, it takes quite a shock, perhaps reaching the point when a person has literally nothing left to lose before they muster the courage and start evaluating their beliefs critically. If even.
To this day, nobody figured out how to open everyone's eyes to this reality. Not Socrates, not Jesus, not Buddha... Which leaves it to Hollywood. To filmmakers, to poets, to songwriters to deliver the message -- wake up! Wake up, Neo. The Matrix has you.