A realidade é…

Reality… What is reality? How do you define reality? Can you tell what’s real from what’s not?

Reality (our own view of it) isn’t real. It’s the product of our perception. We perceive reality through filters/tools that we ourselves develop based on our experiences and contacts with other human beings and the world in general. Tools such as sarcasm, religious values, moral values, the contents absorbed by our senses, the brain, etc. So… Can we say that what we perceive is real? Can we call it reality? If our tools are derived from our experiences, values and senses, then we are all equipped with, more or less, different tools and flawed ones at that. That itself allows for the possibility of there being different realities, within “reality” (what we think It is). So all we “see” are slightly or largely altered versions of what is actually real and concrete. In fact, “reality” can even be altered or created by our mind. If you disagree, then just think about what I am going to say. Sometimes when we dream of being shot, falling, getting slapped, having sex, we can actually feel it. We hear the noises, see the sites, smell the odors, fell the pain, feel contact and it’s real, in spite of it being a product of our imagination/brain, we can actually sense it and it is just as real as what we call reality or the state of awareness that we call being awake. So who’s to say we are not sleeping this very instant. Are you 100% sure this is not just a dream either? Do you think it’s not a dream due to its complexity? How can you know that when you dream (or think you are dreaming), that dream seems less elaborate than “reality”? Is it because your mind is running low on resources due to the fact that you are dreaming within something that is already a pretty elaborate dream itself? The fact is you don’t, you think you do, but you don’t. It could just as easily be that there are several different levels of awareness. Sometimes you can even “wake up” and think something you dreamt happened, but you’re just not sure. Maybe that is the telling factor that you are at the maximum level of awareness and therefore experiencing “reality”, maybe it’s not. What we think/perceive reality to be, might just be a dream we can’t wake up from, a ruse so elaborate that was woven in such a way that our mind cannot comprehend that it isn’t real and, as so, cannot wake up from. We can even contemplate the possibility that our mind is the origin of such a ruse. Then again, reality is a man made concept so maybe we can call our upper most level of awareness reality, in spite of it not complying with the tacitly implicit and commonly accepted concept of reality.

What does all this tell us? Well, to grasp true reality, whatever it is, we must first discard the tools with which we filter and perceive it (this is, if we admit that what we filter is actual reality and not the product of some other altering perception of a constructed reality). But the thing is, if we could actually discard those tools, then we couldn’t process reality! If we can’t process it, how can we know what it is? This brings us back to where we started. Or does it?

P.S. – I know the answer to how you can actually attain reality. Most unfortunately it was a lady who told me and in light of that “reality” I can’t tell you the answer, because a gentlemen never tells.

To those of you who are going to comment, I would appreciate to know what your view on reality is. Thanks.

Fluxus tempus est aeternus quod inexorable

   Nada me custa mais que pensar que, um dia, tal como a chama de um isqueiro quando se fecha a saída do gáz, eu me vou apagar. Sempre que penso nisto, um pedaço de mim morre. Só para imaginarem o quão triste é para mim este assunto, pensem que eu preferia morrer a viver sem uma parte de mim. Dado que eu não quero, de todo, morrer imaginem como isto me faz sentir. À luz da razão do meu pensamento, este fenómeno é pura e simplesmente esmagador. A crueldade que é vivermos com a noção de que caminhamos inexorávelmente para um fim é avassaladora prova de que a nossa consciência é não só um dom como também uma maldição. E o que me assusta não é exactamente imaginar que vou ‘perder’ o meu corpo. Apesar de o meu corpo e aquilo que eu sou e as pessoas conhecem estarem indistinguivelmente ligadas, estas são duas entidades distintas e muito reais. A que me preocupa “perder” é a segunda. Apesar de ao recordamos alguém, ou ao tecermos algum julgamento sobre alguém, nos “apoiarmos” mormente na representação física da existência da pessoa, quando penso em mim não é no meu corpo que me fixo, mas sim nessa entidade que o habita e que o anima e que apesar de distinta é deste indissociável. Uma sem a outra não existe. É o desaparecimento dessa entidade intangível que é o ser, aquilo que me atormenta. Esse tormento provoca em mim um sentimento de deslocação e vertigem como se de repente me encontrasse fora, fora do meu “navio”, esse transporte efémero que me confere o dom da vida. É com uma enorme sensação de impotência que encerro este pensamento, na consciência de que me é completamente impossível perpetuar a existência física do meu ser no fluxo temporal e com esperança de conseguir perputar aquilo que sou através da memória das gerações vindouras.

Religion, Death, Life

Religion stems from our inability, fear or complacent atitude when dealing with our everyday problems. It is this same inability or fear that drives us to turn to ’someone’ or ’something’ else for help, and so we do. At least some of us do. Just the mere thought of being alone in itself, coupled with the knowledge of our own finitude (which is quite a cruel gift, also known as or derived from conscience itself) and the consequences it implies, are so terrifiyng to most of us, that we turn to the ‘knowledge’ that there is something or someone, somewhere, far more powerful than us and that because it is more powerful than us, it dominates some or all aspects of our lives. Whishfull thinking? I’ll leave that for you to decide. I myself do not disavow the hipothesis that there is some other form of life within the confines of our Universe, but nowhere else, not in ‘Heaven’, not in ‘Hell’. Having said that, I think it certainly isn’t interested in the meaningless problems of our everyday lives. My believe is that if you do not fight your own battles, you will forever be lost in the hope that someone else will.

So, in essence, what I am saying is that religion is a ‘man made machine’, and a very flawed one at that, from which questionable good and a lot of terrible things, have surfaced. As a ‘man made machine’, you could have expected it to be, in principle and from the start, flawed, but to see all the suffering it has caused and wheighing in all the good that it has done, I am really inclined to say I don’t see a purpose for it still existing. Especially considering that some of its forms of expression appear to me as mere brainwashing and mind control techniques, like praying the Rosary, for instance. A repetitve, mechanical mind numbing prayer. I know a lot of you will disagree and some of you will even hate me, but all I can say is that I expect you to respect my opinion as I respect yours.

Notwithstanding I do not disapprove of a person being religious. As I believe I am free to fullfill my ‘destiny’ in any way or manner I see fit, knowing that I am the sole responsible being for my deeds and that what I do in life is what defines, me and my very existence, I also believe that a person is free to believe that its passage through this world is overseen by a ‘higher power’. I choose to believe that I walk alone, bar the presence of all those that are dear to me, and that when I have perished, all that will be left is the memory of me and the mark that I have made in this world and its inhabitants, however great or small it may be. We live on in the memories and ‘hearts’ of all of those for whom we have made a difference.

P.S. – I am trully sorry for having written this in English, I know it is not my mother tongue but the whole reasoning was in fact constructed in my mind in that very same language. I am also sorry for the existence of some platitudes in the text but, sometimes, you cannot turn from them in order to best express an idea.