What is Reality?

2017 has been a year of change and growth for me. I've come uncomfortably close to finding what I'm looking for, yet, as I'm sure that many of you can understand, I am not fully there. I have a burning question inside of me that I must have answered.

What is reality?

The frank would give the obvious answer, that reality is the opposite of idealism. Reality is that which is made up of things that are actually in existence, rather than merely thoughts or ideas or hopes. And, in reality, they would be correct. I mean, that's the official definition, isn't it?

But you see, I've always been a "big picture" guy.

In the video above I give a very poorly fleshed out metaphor about how my mind works. Basically, everything is connected up there. That's the simplest way that I can think to put it. You may think of this in terms of the thought disorder known as "loose association," but I have never been diagnosed with any such thing. I think that it is just the natural way that I and many others like me think. It's just how I'm wired.

My mind easily makes connections that most others do not, and as a result I can't ever not see the big picture. Yes, for those of you who are wondering, I do have difficulty focusing. As an aside, I really love it when I can do multiple things at once. Sometimes it feels as though I'm just not built to do one thing at a time.

Anyway, back to the big picture. I'm a different man than I was in January, and I say that proudly. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm getting there. One of the most profound things I experienced was the epiphany that I could be me, the me that I wanted to be, not the me that everyone else wanted me to be. I learned that authentic action, or doing that which is true to oneself and one's innermost desire, brings with it a certain peace. It's a peace that I had never felt before.

The gained desire to act authentically, or to be real, in all things naturally gave rise to a desire within me to discover the extents of authenticity and "realness." I began to question the very meaning of these words. What does it really mean to be real; genuine; authentic? If I'm to be "real," how does that relate to my external reality? Is there any difference between the external reality and the internal reality? What is reality?

You see the difficulty? How does one even begin to really answer that question? Sure, give me the dictionary definition, but I don't believe it. Where does the line lie between real and ideal? Is something imagined not real simply because it has been imagined?

Another difficulty I have is with the fact that human experience is ridiculously limited. The number of unknown things in existence is mind boggling, mostly because no one has any clue as to what is unknown, or how much unknown stuff there is!

Are we to base the concept of what exists solely on what we can each perceive with our senses? To do that seems awfully shortsighted. I'm all for accepting the way things are rather than fight futilely against that which I have no control over, but how am I to know the truth of "the way things are." I can see which things I can fight against in my own life to bring about change, such as laziness, lack of knowledge, lack of direction, etc. But I can't get over the fact that there exists far more than I currently understand, and being that my mind is wired to pull solutions to problems out of any experience or bit of odd knowledge that I've ever obtained, what if I'm missing out on some solution simply because my conception of reality is too limited?

I have a feeling that there is a lot more to "reality" than most of us have allowed ourselves to consider. I understand that this won't have any effect on the lives of the vast majority of people alive today, but it has an effect on me. In fact, I probably spend too much time pondering the topic, but it seems to be my wont to spend time thinking on problems that I can't solve. Who'd a-thunkit?

And don't even get me started on perception of reality vs actual reality and how that all fits into the "big picture" I've mentioned several times in this blog post already. There are as many differing perceptions as there are people, in fact infinitely more if you count as individual perceptions each individual thing perceived. Yeah, too much.

So, after all of this, I don't know the answer. I am unable to confine my conception of reality to merely that which I perceive with my physical senses, yet I am also not able to move past the truth that accepting reality brings peace. I suppose I should just accept the "reality" that I don't know what the fuck reality is.

Until next time,

JP

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