The Real World or Something Like It

This blog may get confusing because this is a topic that kind of confuses me...

Have you ever seen the movie A Beautiful Mind? It's been quite awhile, so I've forgotten pretty much everything about it except for one thing... After seeing it, I remember joking with my friend Christine about the possibility that one of us could be the imaginary creation of the other, a trick of an unstable mind. It always fascinated me: the idea that someone you know, that has played a major role in your life could not be real at all. How would you know?

How do you know that your memories are real? How do you know that what you remember ever really happened? Have you ever had a dream that was so vivid, you remembered it as a real occurrence, only to come to the startling realization later that it couldn't have happened? Is a dream that real a sort of reality all to itself? If you remember it, if you felt it, could that sort of be real?

When you really get down to it, a single person's perception plays a disturbingly large role in the formation of reality as any one person knows it. I mean, sure: just because you perceive something to be real doesn't necessarily make it so; a man may truly believe that he has the ability to fly, but he's still probably going to kill himself if he tries jumping off a tall building to prove it. On the other hand, there's definately something to be said for the things that may be possible through nothing more complicated than one person's persistent belief that they could. The improbability of flying men aside, I would never discount the power of belief; the things that can be accomplished through simple power of will.

But that's kind of getting off my original point. My original point is more about the state of reality itself. Case in point: Blue. What if blue didn't look like what you think blue looks like? What if blue as you know it is just a variant of purple and true blue is something that you've never actually perceived before in your life? You see it the way you do simply because that's how you see it, but seeing something a certain way doesn't mean that that's the way it is. Except that it sort of does. It does to you, at least. What if the whole world has a misperception of blue? Does it matter? Probably not since its just a color, but I think the idea is still relevant. Sometimes perception is reality. Blue is what blue is because that's how we see blue, and that's real to us even if that's not really what blue is. Make sense? Sort of/Not really...?

Well, here's something that really blows my mind... As a writer, I have a very real sense of who my characters are and the worlds in which they live. They are real to me in a way that I'm not sure can be understood by those who haven't experienced the same thing with their own creations. They even define themselves, make their own decisions, live their own lives even if its not a part of the story I'm trying to tell. Were my characters to climb out of the page and present themselves as living, breathing, thinking individuals not unlike what happens in The Dark Tower series, as weirded out as I would be, I can't say I would be entirely surprised, because they are that real to me. So (and this is the part that my mind has fun blowing apart on) what if that's what we are to God? Does that make us any less real? Does that make my characters MORE real? Or are they still less real because they're creations with a little "c" made by a creator with a little "c," rather than The Creator with a capital "C" and an important-sounding "The" at the beginning? Or does that make us more like a dream that God had once? Was that enough to push us into existence?

Of course, you all know that I personally believe that God made us with intention, but I feel its worthwhile to address the idea that we were a by-product of God's overactive imagination. And either way, I think it really calls into question the entire nature of reality... Okay, that's enough of that. Let's go back to the small-scale of this subject...

How important really is a single person's perception to the world around them? All I really mean to point out with this blog is that perception alone can have a huge impact. Someone perceiving something as truth, whether it is or isn't, makes that thing a reality to them, and that may or may be something that you can prove otherwise, and it may or may not be something that you need to or should prove otherwise. Either way: perception is integral. It can make or break the world around you, as well as how you respond to the world around you; whether you're able to cope with the world around you.

That's why I think the following things are important: 1) Its important to try to keep a handle on your own perceptions. Looking at the world in a positive way is going to help make it a more positive place. A dark view of the world is going to make it a darker place. 2) Bear in mind other people's perceptions. You can't reasonably be responsible for how another person is going to view things, but their own view is something to keep in mind. For one thing, they may have a better view, even if you're too dim-witted to see it. Even if that's not the case, with how much of reality may be shaped by how someone sees it, you could be stepping into an entirely different world just by being in someone else's life. Always good to know the customs of the worlds you visit. 3) You never know if there's some part of your world or how much of it that is all in your own mind. No need to be paranoid about that fact, but its something worth keeping in mind. Chances are, we all bear a few minor delusions that would be well-served by remembering numbers 1 or 2.

Okay then. Time to go run around with elves, battle orcs, and fly on giant eagles. ;D