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Life’s Urgent Question

The rent you pay for your room here on Earth

Andrew Rodwin
Brain Labs
15 min readJan 18, 2025

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Mother Teresa and Rosalynn Carter.
Mother Teresa and Rosalynn Carter (public domain)

The Violet Pill

In The Matrix, Neo, the main character must choose between a red pill and a blue pill. Morpheus, who offers Neo alternate futures, counsels him:

“You take the blue pill… the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

But what if there was a third choice? A pill that offered both the bracing reality dose of the red pill and the contented pleasure of the blue pill?

Let’s call it the violet pill.

Compared to the red and the blue, the violet pill is concrete and practical. It not only eases stress and improves your mood by releasing dopamine but also reduces the risk of depression, anxiety, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, general illness, and mortality.

Side effects? Yes, but they’re all positive. No tolerance buildup, no addiction, no disturbing symptoms.

Studies show that Americans who take a violet pill more than 100 times a year are among the healthiest people in the country.

What if the violet pill also improved your self-esteem, increased your social skills, and…

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Brain Labs
Brain Labs

Published in Brain Labs

Brain Labs is a place for people to write about ideas. Original, thought-provoking ideas. We challenge writers to find patterns and make connections in fresh, logical, vigorous, engaging, and often counter-intuitive ways.

Andrew Rodwin
Andrew Rodwin

Written by Andrew Rodwin

Brain Labs publisher. MuddyUm co-editor. Comedic phonemes in MuddyUm, Slackjaw, Jane Austen's Wastebasket, shopping lists, Sudoku, obituaries ...

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