21 October 2011
Reality
At what point should reality set in? Now, I'm not admitting to some existential crisis or trying to start some deep discussion, but sometimes things just don't feel real. You go about your day, something happens, you don't really experience it. Did that just happen? No, it couldn't have. It could be as easy as seeing a man run by in a chicken suit. There is that moment where your not sure if you were briefly lost in your own mind or if a man legitimately just ran by looking like poultry. Moments like these beg the answer to, forgive the admitted tumblr reference, what is reality? Reality is defined as 'the state of being real.' If we can't acknowledge reality, where are we? What are we? Surely reality exists even if we can't or won't admit it. Surely, despite your hesitation to believe it, that man did actually run by in that chicken suit. We cannot decide what is reality. Or can we? Can we convince our subconscious of things so much so that we can distort our own reality? Do we even have our own reality? One question after another, I know, but sometimes things happen and they don't feel real. That can't be real. I tell myself they aren't or that I will adjust to them, but I'm not certain that I can. Uncertainty plagues the subconscious that I try to distort and I'm left not knowing what to believe. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe reality should constantly be in question. Maybe it's our job to keep it in check. Our job to decide what is real and what is not without the rules of definition or existence. If we continue to question all that is real, the world will always be a bit of a mystery. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe.
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9 comments:
This is a perfect example of why you're my favourite YouTuber. Where is the line between reality and not real? Sorry to be a HP nerd, but 'Of course it's in your head, but why on Earth should that mean it's not real?' How do we decide what falls into the 'reality' category and what doesn't?
^yes. I was just thinking that Dumbledore quote. We all make our own realities, each just as real as the next person's. Society will decide (out of necessity) a set of rules based on an agreed reality, but eventually those rules and morals and all reality in general are exposed as constructed, coerced ideas that we are too scared to destroy. If humans don't have a "tangible reality", we lose all sense of who we are or might be.
We often, in these debates, even forget that everything we can fathom isn't necessarily everything there is. I think, however, that it's the connotation of ideas we define, rather than the denotation that really impacts the individual. (i.e. democracy, freedom, etc.)
I know you weren't trying to start a deep discussion.. but anyway, there are my two pence.
I rarely feel the need to think after reading something online... Today I do. Even more since your thoughts about reality make me go back to my media lectures and semiotics, and now I find myself even more perplex about what is reality and whether reality even exists or not. I would've never thought I would be able to find references to such strange questions in my real life. Thanks Kayley!
And I totally agree with Louise. It makes me even more gutted that I won't be able to make it to the TNoTS party tomorrow :( I hope I'll be able to run into you at least once before you leave London!
I've felt like that sometimes. Sometimes just thinking about something that could happen can trigger me thinking 'that won't be real'. It's a bit nuts I know. I guess reality and perception are two different things. I remember reading somewhere that seeing as everyone precieves everything differently there are countless different realites and universes. My personal favourite quote on the perception of reality is by Neil Gaimon 'Any view of the Universe that is not strange is false'. Reality is a bit crazy now that I think about it...
I get exactly what you're saying! I feel like that all the time! I'm a freshman in college and every few days I look back and think "am I really here?! Is this all happening to me?"
I get this feeling quite a lot. It also happens with memories- I remember a night spent with some friends round a campfire very clearly- clearly enough that it's a vivid memory, but just faint enough that maybe it was all a dream. I mean, I know it was real, but sometimes it feels like it couldn't have happened, partly because of how strange and wonderful the night was, but partly because the memory's lingered in my mind for long enough that it's a little fuzzy round the edges.
(ok, sorry, went off on a tangent there. Point is, I get the feelings you just described too, and your post has made me think)
My philosophy is: I reject your reality and substitute my own. Simple, yet effective. :P
very insightful! i have those exact feelings too!!
reading this has been very comforting. i must admit that, what you are describing-wondering whether things are happening in reality / losing yourself in thoughts at times, forgetting to be there in the moment when something real is happening,so you can acknowledge it as part of reality...these things have been happening allot to me in the last couple of weeks. and of course my first instinct was to think i was going mad, then that there must be something wrong with the world, or that the new activities i have started- a happiness-draining job- has taken its toll on me..but just maybe, reality is what we chose to believe, in our minds, to be true/real for us,the reality we think our minds could be able to handle
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