When I started this blog, I knew that about 90 percent of blog-readers will not read it. This neither surprised me nor dismayed me. It still doesn't.
I really don't see my posts as normal, as a matter of fact. You see, I really doubt very much whether human beings these days are allowed to think for themselves. I'm not talking about people who are under the iron thumb of tyranny or oligarchy in our world, as many indeed are. I'm talking about you and me.
Anyways. It's time the curtain closed again.
********************************************************************************
Reality.
I wonder at the word, because we are being asked to believe in this age that reality is not real. Some time ago I was in a restaurant where three gentlemen sat and spoke philosophy. I admit I eavesdropped, because the views they expressed intrigued me.
One of them kept saying nothing is "really real". "This glass here - it can be proved that it actually does not exist."
Never was there a more deceptive word. "REAL"-ity.
We live in that ridiculous age when almost anything, including the fact that you're reading this post now, can be proved to be unreal, or real, just as it suits you, and no matter what evidence there might or might not be to the contrary.
To take a really ridiculous example, when it comes to the word "I", by a simple sleight of hand with words, it can be proved that "I" do not exist. The unreal edifice so built can also be dismantled equally easily. Do I exist? But who is this "I" who is asking?
"Explaining away" is more the prevailing mood of thought than "explaining". The bottom has indeed fallen out of "old time-tested truths", we are told. Everything, even our most precious possessions, come with a shelf life and a use-before date. After that, their very existence, past or present, can be questioned, proved or disproved just as it suits whoever is doing the deconstruction.
********************************************************************************
"Everyone on the side of truth listens to me", said the man. He was not making a philosophical statement, really. In one sense, he could not afford empty philosophy. He was being tried for his life. No amount of "explaining away" could have helped.
The judge under whom he was being tried snorted contemptuously in reply. "What is truth?"
In other words, truth is almost anything that can support my view of my "reality". That is, I can set you free, or have you killed, just as I like, and then what will "truth" matter? And after I've done what I like with you, I can "explain it away" as unreality. No problem there.
In fact, later on in the same trial, the judge thundered, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realise I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?"
Some years later, someone reported this trial. His report was not believed. They've spent many centuries trying to prove it didn't happen like the witness said.
Just one example of how "explaining away" is more expedient than "explaining"; and just one more example of how "reality" can be proved to be either real or unreal, depending on who has the power. Of course, since we all have the power to view anything for anything we want it to be, who's to stop us from calling something real unreal? To go further, we can make people believe me even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary!
*********************************************************************************
What's your reality, friend? What is truth? Does it have a sky painted pink and brown water? Does it have more crawling and creeping things than beautiful ones? Paint-by-numbers!
Maybe you think it's not as bad as all that. I mean, evidence is considered objectively in most arenas of "reality"; there are convicts "justly" (another word we use often but cannot explain) tried and executed, in the face of proper evidence, and so on.
Of course. No denying that. But really, if I wanted to, I can deny it, establish my findings and make people believe me. Really. Don't you watch the news? Don't you read the papers?
There are always layers. If reality is indeed "real", it is not a case of "what you see is what you get". Some people have claimed for about two thousand years now that a man rose from the dead. Was that reality? Can you tell? There is equal evidence either way, you know. So, if it's true, reality itself has altered hasn't it. Normally, dead people do not rise up and walk among us. There's got to be something BEHIND this.
Let me try to construct an alternative reality (or at least, a different one). What if there was a world you couldn't see? What if this invisible world overlaps so perfectly with the visible one so that people in the visible world find no evidence in their visible world of the existence of the invisible one?
What if there were powers and potentates in this invisible world? What if they had intents, purposes and designs on people in the visible world? What if these potentates had the power to follow through on their designs? Worse still, what if they could do it by confusing people in the visible world about what is real?
What if there is a cosmic battle going on in this invisible world? A conflict just like we see in the unreal movies people make these days? Among monsters, demons, invisible forces that have designs on people like us in our visible world?
It doesn't sound so far away from sanity, you know. People have thought about "gods" and "demons" for thousands of years now. Who's to say they aren't right? After all, reality can be just about ANYTHING....... any flavour, and I can choose!
********************************************************************************
I really am talking to those of us "normal, good folk" who go about making a living, marrying and giving in marriage, raising children and providing for them, and looking after our parents when they get old. GOOD people, who do nothing "wrong" (what can indeed be termed "wrong" now, if reality itself can be redefined to suit me)
You drive to your workplace everyday. An honest day's labour. You use your mind. Solve problems, sometimes difficult ones. You drive back home. Maybe you stop at a mall. Or a grocery store, a bank perhaps. You make phone calls.
You come back home to a family. Perhaps you help feed children and put them to bed. You share love with your spouse. Perhaps you watch TV. Strictly the news and perhaps sports. Or a senseless movie. In your heart, you perhaps laugh at the drama that goes on in our world, as reported on the news. Sometimes you're moved by sad things that happen. You're amused by heated debates where someone accuses someone else of unforgiveable wickedness, and the accused one always counters that it can be rationalised, that there was no other option. You're amused because you really have no opinion on any debate.
Perhaps you're online. It's nice to connect with others like yourself. You talk about how you can make your life a lot more secure than it is now. You sensibly lay up for the future.
Perhaps you live for years this way, responding to no other challenge other than what affects you directly; you hate "causes". You have nothing to say really, about history, especially about whether it really happened or not. You're surprised and even amused that some people can become so unreasonable when they speak about "spiritual" things - because you see no evidence of anything beyond "your reality".
I'm talking to those of us who are as I've just described. What do you really think? For you, reality is predictable. For about 75 percent of the others on the planet, reality is what happens moment by moment. To stay alive is a miracle, even if you don't believe in miracles. To get a good meal is a miracle. You could, for example, in equal probability, be snuffed out routinely or denied food just because you don't fit in someone else's "reality", someone who has power over you.
Someone can report that to the rest of the world, and everyone who sees it can construct his own version of YOUR reality, to suit HIS reality.
******************************************************************************
Now that I have mangled the word "reality" irrevocably enough, I am done. You really cannot be angry with me for wasting your time - you thought what I've penned here was real. Maybe I influenced that. But if it did not suit you, you would anyways have gone elsewhere and found something else to suit your reality. In any case, we all fashion each other's reality at least a little, don't we, in some sense.
******************************************************************************
But you know, I really was talking about something real - the fact that reality is like an onion, which can be peeled off in layers. The fact that no matter how we can PAINT reality to suit ourselves, it is a stubborn thing that does not change just because we started thinking differently about it. The fact that no matter how much others try to impose their version of reality on us, it still won't change to suit their description.
The fact that, as human beings, we can, at best, just ADJUST for the better. We cannot completely re-create it anew at our whim; and that parts of it are the same for us all and will remain the same no matter how much we try to adjust them. We can only do so much. Anything beyond that is deception. Just because we can successfully lie to ourselves or others is neither here nor there.
The fact that, whether we like it or not, reality has to do with truth; they go together and parts of them can be the same for everyone. There are indeed realities and truths that actually exist for all human beings no matter how cleverly or successfully we might "explain them away". The judge's question "what is truth" does not invalidate the existence of truth.
And most importantly, the fact that there just might be something beyond reality that exists even though it is invisible. If we can admit the idea at least in thought, who's to say that it could be too fantastic or unimaginable - especially when you consider how ingenuous we are at deceiving ourselves about the reality that is visible.
********************************************************************************
The daily grind. Have you ever looked beyond it? This is not just pious talk, you know, or a carefully worded platitude. There are reasons why you do the things you do, in a world such as this. It IS all headed somewhere. There is purpose; good or bad. There is the passage of time; there is history, there is now, and there is the future. These are real, stubborn, tangible things. Explain them away if you like; or accept someone else's explanation if you like. That will not change anything.
Oh, and those adjustments you want to make. Make them while you still can. Just because eternity is a possibility, do not assume that making adjustments will always be possible. We can only know so much.
Look beyond reality. Peel a layer off. Why do you do what you do? Why must things be this way? Why is our life-span "three score and twenty" and not more?
Peel another layer off. Why are some things good to do and others bad? Can I make everyone do good all the time? Can I make everyone do bad all the time?
You can still continue living like this is a time capsule that will last forever, too. Go right back to sleep.......sorry to wake you.
I really don't see my posts as normal, as a matter of fact. You see, I really doubt very much whether human beings these days are allowed to think for themselves. I'm not talking about people who are under the iron thumb of tyranny or oligarchy in our world, as many indeed are. I'm talking about you and me.
Anyways. It's time the curtain closed again.
********************************************************************************
Reality.
I wonder at the word, because we are being asked to believe in this age that reality is not real. Some time ago I was in a restaurant where three gentlemen sat and spoke philosophy. I admit I eavesdropped, because the views they expressed intrigued me.
One of them kept saying nothing is "really real". "This glass here - it can be proved that it actually does not exist."
Never was there a more deceptive word. "REAL"-ity.
We live in that ridiculous age when almost anything, including the fact that you're reading this post now, can be proved to be unreal, or real, just as it suits you, and no matter what evidence there might or might not be to the contrary.
To take a really ridiculous example, when it comes to the word "I", by a simple sleight of hand with words, it can be proved that "I" do not exist. The unreal edifice so built can also be dismantled equally easily. Do I exist? But who is this "I" who is asking?
"Explaining away" is more the prevailing mood of thought than "explaining". The bottom has indeed fallen out of "old time-tested truths", we are told. Everything, even our most precious possessions, come with a shelf life and a use-before date. After that, their very existence, past or present, can be questioned, proved or disproved just as it suits whoever is doing the deconstruction.
********************************************************************************
"Everyone on the side of truth listens to me", said the man. He was not making a philosophical statement, really. In one sense, he could not afford empty philosophy. He was being tried for his life. No amount of "explaining away" could have helped.
The judge under whom he was being tried snorted contemptuously in reply. "What is truth?"
In other words, truth is almost anything that can support my view of my "reality". That is, I can set you free, or have you killed, just as I like, and then what will "truth" matter? And after I've done what I like with you, I can "explain it away" as unreality. No problem there.
In fact, later on in the same trial, the judge thundered, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realise I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?"
Some years later, someone reported this trial. His report was not believed. They've spent many centuries trying to prove it didn't happen like the witness said.
Just one example of how "explaining away" is more expedient than "explaining"; and just one more example of how "reality" can be proved to be either real or unreal, depending on who has the power. Of course, since we all have the power to view anything for anything we want it to be, who's to stop us from calling something real unreal? To go further, we can make people believe me even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary!
*********************************************************************************
What's your reality, friend? What is truth? Does it have a sky painted pink and brown water? Does it have more crawling and creeping things than beautiful ones? Paint-by-numbers!
Maybe you think it's not as bad as all that. I mean, evidence is considered objectively in most arenas of "reality"; there are convicts "justly" (another word we use often but cannot explain) tried and executed, in the face of proper evidence, and so on.
Of course. No denying that. But really, if I wanted to, I can deny it, establish my findings and make people believe me. Really. Don't you watch the news? Don't you read the papers?
There are always layers. If reality is indeed "real", it is not a case of "what you see is what you get". Some people have claimed for about two thousand years now that a man rose from the dead. Was that reality? Can you tell? There is equal evidence either way, you know. So, if it's true, reality itself has altered hasn't it. Normally, dead people do not rise up and walk among us. There's got to be something BEHIND this.
Let me try to construct an alternative reality (or at least, a different one). What if there was a world you couldn't see? What if this invisible world overlaps so perfectly with the visible one so that people in the visible world find no evidence in their visible world of the existence of the invisible one?
What if there were powers and potentates in this invisible world? What if they had intents, purposes and designs on people in the visible world? What if these potentates had the power to follow through on their designs? Worse still, what if they could do it by confusing people in the visible world about what is real?
What if there is a cosmic battle going on in this invisible world? A conflict just like we see in the unreal movies people make these days? Among monsters, demons, invisible forces that have designs on people like us in our visible world?
It doesn't sound so far away from sanity, you know. People have thought about "gods" and "demons" for thousands of years now. Who's to say they aren't right? After all, reality can be just about ANYTHING....... any flavour, and I can choose!
********************************************************************************
I really am talking to those of us "normal, good folk" who go about making a living, marrying and giving in marriage, raising children and providing for them, and looking after our parents when they get old. GOOD people, who do nothing "wrong" (what can indeed be termed "wrong" now, if reality itself can be redefined to suit me)
You drive to your workplace everyday. An honest day's labour. You use your mind. Solve problems, sometimes difficult ones. You drive back home. Maybe you stop at a mall. Or a grocery store, a bank perhaps. You make phone calls.
You come back home to a family. Perhaps you help feed children and put them to bed. You share love with your spouse. Perhaps you watch TV. Strictly the news and perhaps sports. Or a senseless movie. In your heart, you perhaps laugh at the drama that goes on in our world, as reported on the news. Sometimes you're moved by sad things that happen. You're amused by heated debates where someone accuses someone else of unforgiveable wickedness, and the accused one always counters that it can be rationalised, that there was no other option. You're amused because you really have no opinion on any debate.
Perhaps you're online. It's nice to connect with others like yourself. You talk about how you can make your life a lot more secure than it is now. You sensibly lay up for the future.
Perhaps you live for years this way, responding to no other challenge other than what affects you directly; you hate "causes". You have nothing to say really, about history, especially about whether it really happened or not. You're surprised and even amused that some people can become so unreasonable when they speak about "spiritual" things - because you see no evidence of anything beyond "your reality".
I'm talking to those of us who are as I've just described. What do you really think? For you, reality is predictable. For about 75 percent of the others on the planet, reality is what happens moment by moment. To stay alive is a miracle, even if you don't believe in miracles. To get a good meal is a miracle. You could, for example, in equal probability, be snuffed out routinely or denied food just because you don't fit in someone else's "reality", someone who has power over you.
Someone can report that to the rest of the world, and everyone who sees it can construct his own version of YOUR reality, to suit HIS reality.
******************************************************************************
Now that I have mangled the word "reality" irrevocably enough, I am done. You really cannot be angry with me for wasting your time - you thought what I've penned here was real. Maybe I influenced that. But if it did not suit you, you would anyways have gone elsewhere and found something else to suit your reality. In any case, we all fashion each other's reality at least a little, don't we, in some sense.
******************************************************************************
But you know, I really was talking about something real - the fact that reality is like an onion, which can be peeled off in layers. The fact that no matter how we can PAINT reality to suit ourselves, it is a stubborn thing that does not change just because we started thinking differently about it. The fact that no matter how much others try to impose their version of reality on us, it still won't change to suit their description.
The fact that, as human beings, we can, at best, just ADJUST for the better. We cannot completely re-create it anew at our whim; and that parts of it are the same for us all and will remain the same no matter how much we try to adjust them. We can only do so much. Anything beyond that is deception. Just because we can successfully lie to ourselves or others is neither here nor there.
The fact that, whether we like it or not, reality has to do with truth; they go together and parts of them can be the same for everyone. There are indeed realities and truths that actually exist for all human beings no matter how cleverly or successfully we might "explain them away". The judge's question "what is truth" does not invalidate the existence of truth.
And most importantly, the fact that there just might be something beyond reality that exists even though it is invisible. If we can admit the idea at least in thought, who's to say that it could be too fantastic or unimaginable - especially when you consider how ingenuous we are at deceiving ourselves about the reality that is visible.
********************************************************************************
The daily grind. Have you ever looked beyond it? This is not just pious talk, you know, or a carefully worded platitude. There are reasons why you do the things you do, in a world such as this. It IS all headed somewhere. There is purpose; good or bad. There is the passage of time; there is history, there is now, and there is the future. These are real, stubborn, tangible things. Explain them away if you like; or accept someone else's explanation if you like. That will not change anything.
Oh, and those adjustments you want to make. Make them while you still can. Just because eternity is a possibility, do not assume that making adjustments will always be possible. We can only know so much.
Look beyond reality. Peel a layer off. Why do you do what you do? Why must things be this way? Why is our life-span "three score and twenty" and not more?
Peel another layer off. Why are some things good to do and others bad? Can I make everyone do good all the time? Can I make everyone do bad all the time?
You can still continue living like this is a time capsule that will last forever, too. Go right back to sleep.......sorry to wake you.
