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a thought or twoabout the changeableness and rearrangeableness of anyone's view of "reality"
People are always telling me that what is, just is -- and you just cannot change it. People are always saying that nobody can change the past. Both assertions are inaccurate. You can radically, regularly change "reality." You can change the present and you can change the past. Many people haven't noticed. For some who've noticed, but who yearn for simplicity, it makes them anxious -- seeming to make life too complex. For some who've noticed, but who yearn for rules, it makes them angry -- seeming to make life too subjective. Reality is perspective-dependent. It changes as one changes views. I am very tall when I am with most people. I am very short when I am with my wife's cousins. My height hasn't changed for years. My height changes drastically. Change the present -- change what is to something else? Look at a pastry that whispers with its flaky shell and creamy display how tasty and delicious it promises to be. Think of the blissful taste. That is one potential reality. Then think of that pastry not only causing your body to store lots of fat from the meals that you'd recently eaten, but also contributing to the potential for diabetes or sugar overload. And in that changed reality, the pastry promises bliss and tastebud heaven -- and then morphs into an attractive assassin, threatening death and disease and disorder. Look at a death as a permanent loss that rips a huge chunk of your heart out. Then look at that same death as a loved one being released from the pain, stress, distress and dispair of this life and possibly going on from this dimension to the next, like someone traveling from New York to Paris, going on ahead before you make the trip yourself. Change the past -- change what was to something else? Ask the wife who, after months of gathering evidence about her husband's infidelity, finds out he has been working a second, secret job to buy her something very special for her birthday -- ask her if she didn't experience a complete revision of much of what she had experienced during the time she thought her husband was cheating. Or, ask the wife who, after years of believing her husband has been off to a second job several nights a week, finds out he has a second family -- a second set of wife and kids -- and see if she thinks finding that out has changed any of her memories. Or, ask the thirty year old woman, mother of a seven year old daughter, who has for twenty three years been holding a deep hurt, guilt and anger with herself since finding her mother dead from suicide when she came home from school one day when she was seven. Ask about her feelings of guilt. Then point out that her daughter is seven and ask if her daughter should feel guilty if her mom killed herself. And then ask again about her past and her guilt and see if she doesn't describe how in a few minutes, her past had changed dramatically. When reality is optional, change it to what works the best. Recently I got an email from someone telling me about years of torment and abuse and years of self-anger and self-sabotage and a recent recognition that she had wasted much of her life being negative. Feeling that she had wasted her years being negative might help her be motivated not to waste time any more. Or it might make her feel so angry with herself that she feels she doesn't deserve to get it right now. Looking at those years of negativity and keeping herself from success might be seen as being wasted. She might feel she was certainly very stupid for having wasted that time. On the other hand, those years of negativity might be seen as a normal consequence of the hurts she had experienced. She might feel she is certainly very smart for having found a way to stop being so negative. She might want to berate herself for having been so unsuccessful in life -- not having become the president of some company or not having aquired a large mass of money in the bank. Or she might want to congratulate herself for having been so successful in life -- for having achieved success in overcoming severe trauma and hurt. She might decide to be angry and frustrated that she has accomplished so little or she might decide to be proud of herself that she has accomplished so much. In each of these choices, she might decide to pick the reality that will is most based on the value that she wants to value the most. She might decide to make her choices on the basis of what will make her life most productive and happy. She might decide to make her choices on the basis of making sure she doesn't every feel happy or proud or good because she deserves bad things happening to linger and burn. For my part, it amazes me how often people seem to make choices to make themselves feel badly in order to punish themselves for things going badly -- like making themselves feel badly is good because they made themselves feel badly and that was bad. How weird is that? But weird as it is, it seems normal! Life is quite complex and very stressful at times. And it is easy to say to one's self that some goal is important but is unattainable and all is lost. But why do that?
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| What you cannot change, control &/or influence externally, you can change, control &/or influence in your mind and experience. ~ Poor Rachel's Almanac |
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