What Is Reality?
One of my favorite writers, speakers, theologians, and humans to learn from as of late is Alan Watts.
He asks “what is reality?” and reminds us that it is not something to be defined.
So, let’s play this fun game of gluing words together to try and wrap our minds around “reality”.
If you were born blind, what kind of reality are you experiencing? I would imagine it’s one of magnificent scores and harmonies that illustrate what and where you are. I imagine that avocados taste like the sunset and hugs feel like the arrival of a newborn child. I imagine there is a sense of trust and grounding every day in order to perceive what happens in and around you. Then again, I can’t see my eyes or the inside of my skull but, I am pretty sure both are there.
This begs the question — are we all in the same reality? Are we watching the same movie? Am I hearing the same songs? Am I tasting the same sweetness and burning my hand on the same tea kettle?
Surely, we are not. This simplest example can catch you up to the concept — our eyes and ears and feet and hands have not witnessed the same string of events, scents, sounds, and sites. Therefore, how could we ever understand each of our respective realities? How am I to ever relate to you when you’ve been frolicking around the same field but seeing only rainbows and I see butterflies? How can it be that when I tell you about my dear butterflies your heart does not even palpitate at their magnificence?
But how can I be so angry? If you’re not seeing these creatures then I shall not expect you to care.
Can you describe to me what a rainbow looks like? What is the color blue? What do you mean it disappears at the end? Let me close my eyes and try to imagine it.
What will we do when words do not suffice? How many times have you tried to describe love only to realize that it is not something to describe but something to experience.
The same goes for reality. “The mystery of life is not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience” suggests Frank Herbert ever so gently as he paints a picture on the moving screen.
I find myself trying to understand life through the flimsiness of language only to stop myself and abandon all semblance of sense. The point is not to understand or reach for an explanation. Two people fall in love and decide to share a life together not because it makes sense and the numbers told them to — love elicits the desire to be with the other. To hold their presence and look into the universe inhabiting their eyes. In the same way that I cannot explain to you how my heart knows to pump blood and my skin knows how to heal, I cannot explain why my soul is entangled with the love of my life. It just is and it was meant to do so.
You can try to explain love and connection by the hormones being released and the presence of oxytocin but we all know, it’s just not the same. And I don’t want it to be the same. Do not tell me the scientific explanation for my capacity to love deeply and my willingness to protect my family no matter what. I experience this as a reality and I will declare it as so.
As soon as you make the inexplicable explicable, I don’t want it anymore. I prefer to push my understanding to a point that is beyond the use of words. Why do you think that every time the student asks the Zen master “what is enlightenment?” the answer falls somewhere in between an elusive parable and a question-as-answer? That is because if your perception of reality is based on the textbook you studied and the story you were told, it is not reality. You, dear friend, are living in a fairy tale of upside-down rainbows and unenchanting butterflies with broken wings and hairy legs. That is not it.
The man who spends his entire life with eyes glued to a box with people standing in it reporting on the events outside his door will never give himself the chance to step outside that door to realize that the event was just a party he didn’t get invited to. The invite got lost in the mail while he was busy turning up the volume and reheating his ramen noodles. (The party was fun and they screamed all sorts of nonsense for which the box people were very angry about).
How many people do you know that live their life as if it’s that box? Are these fun people? Do they ever just calm down? Do they ever turn their nose toward the sky and sniff the rain? Will they ever smash the box and run naked into the field? What do the box people recommend they do when they feel sad? Probably to just ask their doctor!
Smash the box while you can. It’s the devil’s trick in making you abandon your own sense of reality. It tries to replace your 5 senses with the Sunday evening news and the latest gossip on who said what to the old hag in the senate. Gross!
Your best chance at understanding reality is to throw all your devices, watches, books, and music boxes into the deepest part of the ocean and begin to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Don’t bother putting your seatbelt on or getting your neighbor to quiet down because safety is an illusion and comfort is just a word. Reality is this. It’s this word I just wrote. And this one right here. Dog. Cat. Tree. Typing on a screen. Your reality is your eyes perceiving my use of letters and phrases and digesting it through your skull to transmute it into a spark of emotion or an intriguing thought.
Reality is the here and now. It is nothing and it is everything. The beginning and the end of time are brain-bending wonders and so too should be your grasp of reality.
If you think you understand the world then you aren’t looking hard enough, you aren’t asking enough questions and you aren’t letting your mind run free.
Run free until you hit a wall, until your vision is a blur, until your cry turns into a laugh and until nothing making sense means that everything makes sense.
Do not confuse your thoughts with reality or your eyesight with reality. It is somewhere in between the trees, the space between you and your lovers’ lips, the place where the wave begins to curl, the moment you thought it was about to end, and the time where an unidentifiable voice told you to lean in and say — what’s out there?
It is neither here nor there. Up or down. Across the street or three houses over. It is you, it is in you, and it’s in me and the trees and the dirt and the breeze.
So I will ask you one more time:
What is reality?