Robin Williams said it perfectly, "Reality, what a concept."
The notion that the way some people perceive their own existence and define it as “reality” can be a difficult thing to comprehend. That's the way it is, however. Each of us blends together our experiences, trained responses to stimulus and the effects it has on us and calls it reality. It really goes way beyond simple categorization of sensory input, but that’s how modern science qualifies it.
If three people are standing on a street corner and a bird flies close by each experiences the event differently, but reality had NOTHING to do with their sensory input. They all saw it. They all heard the sound of the air as the bird flapped its wings. They all smelled the exhaust of the diesel truck as it passed. They all felt the hot sun. Their finite senses relayed the event and their brains transferred the flow of information from the incoming impulses into recorded memories and filed them neatly away.
However, one person’s reality did NOT match another’s.
One saw the flight pattern the bird was navigating and predicted, exactly, what direction the bird would bank and how much yaw or roll would pitch the bird’s body into an updraft that carried it just over the two story building across the street. She filed the information away and wanted to be able to pilot the little twin engine airplane her instructor let her borrow to mimic the bird’s motions. She hoped that later that night she’d dream about flapping her own wings and soar above the Earth. She wondered if, maybe, she’d been a bird in another life. That was reality.
Another actually felt the unborn child wrapped in a thin shell that the bird carried within it and smiled at the thought that his lovely wife carried their own unborn child at that very moment. He said a little prayer for the bird and for his wife asking God for healthy babies and an ease to the suffering that both mothers would deal with during delivery. His heart was overwhelmed with concern for his wife and, at that moment, for the beautiful little bird that had flown by. He smiled and thanked God for His mercy and for sharing a precious moment of love with him. That was reality.
The last was startled by the fact that if that stupid bird hadn’t turned at the last moment it would have ended up flattened against a windshield. He cursed the fact that the small animal didn’t have the brains to stay out of the stinking city. He remembered that he was late for his second job and sighed as he promptly pushed the bird out of his mind and told himself that he had more important things to think about. That was reality.
Do you relate to one of those people? What I’ve recently been trying to tell you is that as you grow, and your mind and heart begin to experience more and more of the world and beyond, you’ll learn to relate to ALL of them. You will actually find that you can understand and, to an extent experience, someone else's reality.
Some of you may wonder why this is important. Why should anyone care about living through the trials, tribulations or experiences of anyone else? Hey, life is about actually living, right? From the moment we become aware that we are, in fact, alive we begin the process of passing through time and moving from one experience to another. Some are noteworthy enough to file into conscious memory. Others, though no less important, get filed away deep in our subconscious. To this day, no scientist has ever been able to find a way to explain these different “perceptions” and their reaction on our brains but, down to the last, they all admit that they exist. Each of us seems to be passing through our own existence, like tiny recorders, soaking up as much of life as possible while we're here.
So are these perceptions reality? Nope. That’s not it either.
“Okay, Rev, where are you going with this?”
I’m so glad you asked! A dear friend of mine wrote to me this week and said that he appreciates the fact that I seem to understand him so well. Since then, I’ve been wondering what that means. Obvious is the fact that we share similarities, but does that explain why I would be able to actually understand him? I don’t think so.
Who are we, so that others can understand us? I know what we’re not. We are not our jobs. We are not our likes and dislikes. We are not our taste in clothes. We are not the food that we eat. We are not the children that we produce. We are not the air we breathe.
I do not believe, as many before me have stated, that we are actually just the sum total of our parts. I’m not contradicting myself, believe me. If you take a battery, a crystal disc, a handful of gears and a leather strap and place them together are they, in fact, a watch? No, until those pieces are arranged in an specific way they are only individual pieces with the potential of being a watch. They are each unique, each essential parts of the whole, but they are not the whole by themselves. Neither is the whole complete without those individual parts. I don’t call a battery or crystal or gear or leather strap a watch. Each part is definitely unique and special with the potential of being more than itself.
We are each individuals with the right to stand by ourselves and be recognized as unique and precious. However, we are all, every one of us, born with unlimited potential to be part of something much bigger. That is a part, a piece, of the unified whole that you may be destined for.
One gear was not originally a gear. It may have been simply a piece of unshaped metal with the potential to be shaped into that gear. Before that it was ore buried deep beneath the Earth with the potential to be refined into that metal. Before that it may have been a meteor that had the potential to strike a little blue planet orbiting around a class 3 yellow star. And so on.
You are not the chemical elements that make up your body. You are not the thoughts that race through your head. You are not the dishes you pick out to give as a gift to a friend on their wedding day. You are not how fast you drive in your car. You are not the gravel you tread on.
Is everything that ticks and tells time a watch? Is that reality? Nope, that isn’t it either.
“Look, Rev, you’re starting to piss me off, get to the point.”
Let me ask you something. Who are you? If anyone asks you that question what comes instantly to mind? Your job? Your children? Your house? Your religion? Your name?
Is that who you are? Is that reality? Nope, still not it.
“Rev, you’re not making any sense.”
Oh, sorry about that. I get sidetracked. I’m trying to give answers but I have so many questions that it’s difficult to address them all. Does a question exist without an answer? Sure, but it has the potential for being answered. Do I exist as a writer without having readers? You bet I do, but that potential is there. Is that reality? Nope, still not it.
Getting back to the quandary of my dear friend… He’s a very wonderful soul and has so much potential. He has achieved some of it and, to a certain point, gets a little overwhelmed when he experiences a glimpse of how much more is there. Is that who he is? Nope.
Is the fact that he perceives my intuitions and love for him reality? Nope, but it doesn’t make any of that less important or valid.
Look, I really am trying to make a point here.
“Finally, Rev, I thought you’d never get to it.”
Ah, but is the end of a story more valid than the beginning or middle? Does the story exist before it has been written? You are not the legacy of your life. You are not your birth or death. You are not the friends you make. You are not the things you create.
Each of us has an innate sense of the things around us that we perceive but those things are more, much more, than the senses that we use to experience them and define them so that we can catalogue them in our limited brains.
The things that affect you do not make you who you are. The things you affect do not define you, either.
I want each of you, reading this, to consider that there is more than you will ever be able to understand at work in our universe. I want so much to help you to understand that it’s not just about the portions you experience and perceive that make it all so wonderful. The people that I’ve learned from have all taught me that happiness, serenity and that giddy sense of joy I was searching for wasn’t meant to be contained only in the resolution I was heading for but was also contained in the search itself and even in the dream of beginning the journey and beyond.
Recently my heart and mind opened up to the appreciation of the infinite mystery. An endless number of questions and limitless potentialities and it has forever changed me. I realized that all I had to do was admit that I would never be satisfied if all I ever wanted was just the individual pieces. They are limited and finite and tangible but they are not all there is.
I really want a haircut.
“That’s it, Rev, I’m convinced. You’ve finally lost it.”
Yeah, isn’t it wonderful? I like wanting a haircut. I like enjoying the fact that my body processes protein compounds into cells that grow out of my head. I like the environmental conditions that create striations in the hair fibers that make these annoying little curls around my ears and make me realize I need to get a haircut. I like wondering if the person with the razor sharp scissors could snap at any second and give Sweeney Todd a run for his money (I have a sick sense of humor, sometimes, I know). I like knowing that the chair I sit in, while the potentially demon barber hacks away at my protein laden striation fibers, is a marvel created by an engineer who took pride in making it. There’s so much more!!! The refinery that produced the gasoline I’m going to burn driving there. The pedestrians I’m looking forward to smiling at and waving to during my trip there. The seemingly endless array of hair care products on glass shelves next to the cash register attended by a bored high school student wondering about the guy she met at a party last night.
Add it all up and enjoy the fact that no matter how much you discover there’s still more. Isn’t it great?
“Rev, you’ve forgotten about your friend, again.”
Nope, not at all.
Dear friend, I love you not because of what you do. I love you not because of how you feel. I love you not because of what you give to me. The truth is that explaining exactly why I love you would be like asking me to explain reality. Love is one of the greater mysteries. No one denies that it exists but we all agree that it does.
So give yourself a few minutes, each day, to expand your heart and mind and appreciate the infinite, the Divine. Know that within you are infinite potentialities, unlimited possibilities, unknowable mystery, countless questions and the effects of a Divine universe that is far beyond your comprehension. Then, consider what I’ve been telling you. The universe thought you were important and essential enough to be here.
It needs you. It wants you. It loves you. Why?
Ah, that’s reality.
“The only two things that inspire me to awe are the infinite universe without and the moral universe within.” ~ Albert Einstein
Sorry, no top ten, this week. Next week for sure.
I wish you all abundant joy!
