"You know, the trouble with real life is there's no danger music" - The Cable Guy

I can't say with any definitive certainty, but if I had to guess, I would say that the current temperature in my apartment is somewhere around 346 degrees Fahrenheit (but inside a Winter Fresh mouth, it's much, much cooler!). It's unbearably hot, which is probably why I couldn't fall asleep and walked into the living room around 2:30am to find my roommate sprawled out on the couch watching the Truman Show.

I saw this movie when I was in 6th grade, and I guess somewhere during the past 10 years, the fact that this movie is unbelievable got sequestered into the deepest, darkest depths of my brain (the metaphorical ocean floor, if you will). After all, I had tons of other important things to try and remember during that time like my high school career wiffle-ball batting average and the Contra code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A, select, start).

But after sitting down and watching this movie as an adult—or so my parents claim when they threaten to cut me off—it really hit me how wild the premise of this movie is. Truman Burbank's (Jim Carey) entire life is lived on the world's largest television set. Everything he has ever known is a lie; utterly and completely constructed for the sole purpose of entertaining millions of fans, in the world's longest running reality tv show. For those of you who have never seen Truman Show, it's basically Big Brother meets Big Brother After Dark meets steroids (HGH! Protein!).

My roommate and I started talking about the possibility of a show like this ever coming to fruition, a show where a person's every move from birth was documented for the world to see. At first it sounded ridiculous but then I thought about all the people who watch Big Brother After Dark just to see footage of the contestants sleeping, eating Cheerios, or running on a treadmill etc. and it seemed highly likely that a show like this could probably be in the works even as I'm typing this. From there, it didn't take much for my warped imagination to ask itself "Oh man, what if it's already happening...and I'm Truman?!" How would I ever know? It was all I could do to not climb on a chair and open up the smoke detector looking for a camera. Plus, you know, it's 346 degrees and moving off the couch isn't very high on my To Do list.

Think about it, though. If put in that situation, how would you know? If everything you have ever experienced and known to be true was, in actuality, fake: your family, your boy/girlfriend, your first grade teacher, the traffic on I-495 you got stuck in, all of it, would you ever be able to tell it wasn't real? My guess is no. But here's the kicker: assuming everything was fake but it was the only thing you have ever known, wouldn't that inherently make it real (Mr. Gorgias, meet Mr. Descartes!)? And if that was the case, would you really want to know things weren't what they seemed or would you rather live in blissful ignorance? So what's it gonna be Mr. Anderson? Red pill or blue pill?

-Adam

PS: This post wasn't the usual, but hey, its 5am and I'm sitting on my couch sweating like Larry David eating spicy Mexican food and I'm not feeling very witty. All I know is, if this is a reality show I'm stuck in, can someone turn up the A.C.?