What is “Real”?

What is “real”? Certainly not this world! This world is no more “real” than a movie. In fact, what we perceive as “real” is a movie: a really realistic one, with not just movement, color, and sound.

Our movie has true surround sound, a much broader field of vision, but also taste, smell, & feeling! So what is our perception of reality, actually? Is it not, in fact, a series of electromagnetic waves of differing wavelengths falling upon our five extraordinarily sensitive sensors (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin)? By means of our sensors are we not actually receiving only images of another reality somewhere else?

Unaided by tools such as telescopes and microscopes my senses tell me the sun circles the earth and that I stand on the earth, which is probably flat. My native senses do not allow for the possibility of a spherical earth where those beneath me are held there by something called gravity. Nor do they allow for any theory that suggests the sun and moon are not the same size or that they are not the same distance from the earth. In our modern age most of our belief systems are predicated on what “experts” tell us rather than from actual personal experience.

Scientists tell us that the world we perceive as solid is actually 99% empty, as is “outer” space. Why do we perceive solidity where there is only space? Our “feeling” sensors give us this perception and so that is what we believe. We are actually more like holograms than solid objects, but holograms fitted with five means of receiving information. These five senses used in an infinite number of combinations create a remarkable number of realities: one for each of us, no two exactly alike. Therefore, my movie is truly unique among all mankind who have ever lives – and so is yours. And they are still just images of reality, not reality itself

Death & Orgasm

I think death must be the ultimate orgasmic experience.

Just as leaving the womb must be considered the high point of our time in that enclosure, exiting this world must have all the intensity and delight of sexual climax or of enjoying a fabulous meal.

Of course, death is a frightening spectacle to those remaining behind. A body in the throes of death can be both horrifying and comical to the observer, but so is birth throughout the animal kingdom. A chicken struggling to escape the egg or a butterfly emerging from its cocoon are all pictures to comfort us as we draw closer to our own leave-taking: exhausting, yes, but not necessarily painful to the exiting soul and spirit.

And oh, the glory we behold when we first enter this present world. Even as newborn infants this present world must seem as different and engaging in comparison to life in the womb (those nine, long tedious months) as we will find the next world in comparison to this.

My Golden Rule

Do unto others as you wish they had done unto you.

Your Feet’s too Big

My parents loved the music of Fats Waller, and I still have their old 78 dance records I grew up listening to. “Your Feet’s Too Big” remains one of my favorites.

I have occasion more and more these days to reflect on the significance of that song. It seems the older I get, the bigger my feet become and the further away from me they get. It’s increasingly harder to reach them, and once I get there it gets harder to do things for them.

I have recently begun seeing a podiatrist on a regular basis. One reason for doing so is because my once soft and youthful feet have become hideously ugly. Another reason is I can no longer cut my own nails efficiently. The big and little toenails, especially, have grown as thick and tough as plywood. After just my first visit I was amazed at how much more familiar & friendly my feet seemed once more. And they felt so good! I have accepted, therefore, the fact that I can no longer take care of my poor feet without help from others.

Such admissions of the need for assistance become more frequent as the years go by. Of course, all of our lives we need help from others: for our teeth, our eyes, our hair. But there is something innately absurd and frightening about discovering you can’t even manage your own feet anymore. It brings new poignancy to the accounts of people washing each other’s feet in earlier times.

Part of our journey is learning to accept loss as our constant companion. Eventually we lose everyone and everything we’ve known in this world. For many years we naturally sail against the approaching darkness. We exercise, diet, heed the advice of our doctors, and deny ourselves every joy life has to offer in the vain hope that we can slow down the aging process and the approach of death, but all such strivings provide only temporary illusions that we have made any significant change in the quality of our future and, sooner or later, we must accept our mortality on our own terms.

I can no longer take care of myself as I once could. As Fats observed, “From your ankles up, I say, you sure are sweet. From there down there’s just too much feet.”

Facing this truth helps me appreciate all the more the things I can still do for myself. Finding I can give up tasks to others when time comes helps diminish fears about future losses.

In Limbo in This World

Just as the movies can be used a simile for our existence in this world, so I believe can our experience in the womb help us better understand our journey through life.

Most of us believe that we have no memory of our time in the womb, at least in terms of what our brain can recall. On some psychic or spiritual level perhaps we do “remember” aspects of that journey, but it is vague at best.

Some of us like to imagine the next world as a place that will be familiar to us in terms of mutual recognition of old friends & loved ones. But it is certainly possible that such recognition may not include specific recollection of experiences in this life any more than we can recall specific memories from the womb.

From that perspective of our future world, it may seem as if this existence was a mere illusion or a vague state of limbo even as the womb seems to us now.

We tend to imagine that there will be reward and punishment for actions we performed here. But if we are not responsible for our actions here then we have neither reward to anticipate nor punishment to fear, any more than an actor is held responsible to his actions in a movie.

Life in this world seems more and more to me as a movie that is forgotten as soon as “The End” is flashed on the screen, the lights come up, and the illusion is ended before the audience leaves the theater.

A State of Limbo

What was our state of existence while in our mother’s womb? Were we “alive”? Great political & theological battles have been fought down through the ages trying to answer such questions. Undoubtedly they will continue to be fought till the end of time, for each generation must decide for itself after having lived a complete existence in this world.

But what of that other world in which we were conceived and our future body was being formed? Where were we, and what was actually occurring? We certainly were alive in some sense, but surely not in the same sense as we were alive when we ceased to be a fetus and became a human baby (and just when does that change occur? At what instant can we declare that one has become the other?). Perhaps “limbo” is the most accurate description for a place between two worlds, but not really of one or the other.

Life as a Movie

Will Shakespeare imagined life as a play, which makes some sense considering his life calling. Being a product of the second half of the twentieth century, I see life as a movie, and the similarities between life and the movies become more striking as I continue to age.

For example, movies generate an energy or life force of their own, independent of the characters’ actions or the plot line. The characters in a movie are not really alive – they only appear to be (if you look behind the TV or movie screen, there is no one there, even though the illusion may be so complete you believe you are a participant in or an observer of a real experience).

Characters in a movie, then, are not really alive. They are illusions, mere vessels through which the screenwriter tells his story. Actors in a play or movie are not alive either. That is, the characters that the actors portray are not really alive – they are merely the vessels though which the actor tells his part of the whole story (just as the actor is, in turn, a vessel for the playwright).

More and more I see myself through which Some Greater Power is telling a story, in which “I” am the Star.

But it is just a story, no matter how “real” my movie seems to me. I am just a vessel and therefore not responsible for my actions, any more than an actor in a movie is responsible for his actions – they were decided for him by the screenwriter, who carries the responsibility for actions, not the actor.

What a hoot to finally realize I am not responsible for my actions and that I cannot be either rewarded or punished for my participation in this story. I am merely an actor playing my part as written, cast, and directed by the Great Producer in the Sky.

You Are the Star

The Creator(s) have placed each of us in an extremely realistic movie in which each of us is the Star. In other people’s movies, we may play supporting roles, or be walk-ons, or -- for most of the six billion plus people in the world -- not appear at all. But in our movies we are the Stars!

None of us fully grasps the true impact of this fact. God has made us the star in our life story. We are not secondary characters or non-entities in the grand scheme of things, although it may appear so to most of us even as we live our story. But we are the one individual to whom the gods are paying exclusive attention every micro-second of our existence in this world. What a concept!

Heads & Hearts

The world speaks to our heads. God speaks to our hearts.

The World

The world will have to do until the real thing comes along.

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Life is a continual tradeoff. You can’t receive something without experiencing a comparable loss. For example, the price of wisdom is the loss of innocence. For every secret of life we unlock there is a further loss of the sense of magic and wonder that life offers the young and young at heart.

The price of a good time might be a hangover, cavities, calories and unwanted weight gain (or an unwanted weight loss), disease, or death.

What we usually fail to realize is that each of these “negatives” is actually a positive in disguise, including death itself. The ultimate necessity for all of us is to be able to exit this world when it is time. Without cavities, inappropriate weight, disease, etc., we would never experience death, which is, of course, only leaving the womb of this world and entering (or re-entering) the next world. Does anyone really want to live forever in this world?

I have always been fascinated by the Bible’s account of the man who buried his “talents.” Is it only coincidence that in English the word “talent” (an ancient word for currency) is a synonym for “gift”? The essence of this story is the lesson that we fail to use something given to us it is wasted. Something has to be spent or used if it is to prove productive. Except a seed fall into the soil & die, it remains alone.

Most of us spend our lives trying to preserve that which is meant to be spent. We do so because we are taught that it is responsible to protect our resources (e.g., health, wealth, time, and energy) rather than to squander (that is to spend) them. Perhaps in the long run it is wiser to spend our resources while we can still enjoy them. The present is truly all we have. The future is unknown, including how much of the future still remains for each of us.

"Destiny" in the Modern World

I recently sat through a fascinating film entitled “What the Bleep Do I Know?” The subject of the documentary was quantum physics and what this scientific discipline can tell us about what “reality” is and what it isn’t.

As I understood the film, it seemed to be saying that if we correctly understood quantum physics and its implications we would be able to control events more successfully. We could “choose” our lives & make them what we want them to be. In other words, we would be able to “choose out destiny.”

I found this film to be fascinating not only for what it seemed to offer the modern world – but for what it clearly refuted about the ancient world. The Greeks & Romans believed in a number of Gods & Goddesses who arranged the lives of mortals according to their own whims. Mortals were not in control of events, but could only react to events as they occurred. The Ancients viewed life as being determined by “fate” or “destiny.” They understood these concepts to preclude what the modern world calls “free choice.”

Muslims, Jews, & Christians would view destiny or fate as “the perfect will of god.” But these three offshoots of the “faith of Abraham” all insist that humans have the power to follow or resist the Will of God.

What fascinated me the most about this film is that several people presenting their viewpoints seemed to be totally ignorant of the dictionary meaning of “destiny” & “fate.” The dictionary declares that both fate & destiny are the predetermined succession of events.

Therefore, the concept of “choosing one’s destiny” betrays a lack of understanding of the oxy-moronic state that by definition contradicts itself. You cannot “choose” something that is already chosen for you.

I am convinced that quantum physics, correctly understood, helps modern humanity to correctly understand life – but not if it’s interpreted as a means to help us make “better choices.” The choosing has been done for us, “thank God” (or whoever is responsible for directing our existence).

More on this later.

"Bullshit"

This is a word that gets thrown around a lot by just about everyone sooner or later. For those of us raised in a gentler, more refined era “bullshit” is a word we rarely heard until well into the 1960s. Now it seems to be more commonly in use than the articles “a,” “an,” and “the.” I seem to be using the word more frequently as I get older.

What do we mean when we declare something to be B.S.? Do we not feel that this teaching about such & such simply is not true for us, no matter how the rest of the world may embrace it?

“Truth,” ultimately, is a personal matter, and my conviction about reality may be for you the epitome of error. All I know is that every day I am amused and/or infuriated by assertions from “authoritative sources” that this panacea or that – recycled with new labels & terminology – is going to cure the world’s ills.

I remember now with great fondness the button wore years ago by a colleague when our school staff were to be presented with a “revolutionary” set of educational paradigms. My friend sat through an endless number of meetings with a sweet smile on her face. On her blouse the button read simply, “Sounds like BULLSHIT to me.”

That’s just about how it all sounds to me these days.

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Nothing is as it appears (or so it seems).

Experience is not the best teacher. It is the only teacher.

If you don’t believe everything you hear about me, I won’t believe everything I hear about you.

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1. We cannot declare that we love God until we first love ourselves – for we are mirror images of our Creator (conversely, if we loathe ourselves, we also loathe our Creator).

2. We cannot declare we love others until we first love ourselves, because our neighbors are also mirror images of out Creator, just as we are. Thus it is written: love thy neighbor, as thyself.

3. We cannot declare that we love God while we still judge others, for those that we still judge to be in error are exact reflections of that Creator we profess to love.

Conclusion:
Love yourself.
Love others.
Love God.
In that order (it’s impossible to do it the other way around).

Free Will or Fate

“Chance is the fool’s word for fate”
The Gay Divorcee, 1933 (Fred & Ginger)

Do we direct our lives, or are our lives controlled by the gods, or by fate or destiny? I think that as we get older we tend to believe the latter. As younger people (i.e., under fifty), it is comforting to believe that we are in control of our lives. “We make it happen.” “You can be anything you want.”

As we get older, however, we find ourselves looking back over a string of failures: bad marriages, failed or disappointing businesses and careers, our kids on drugs, dreams that didn’t come true despite our sincerest efforts. And with these failures goes guilt: “I should have done it differently.”

In order to diminish the sense of guilt, we tend to find ourselves being drawn into the camp of what the religionists call pre-determinism (what the ancients called fate or destiny). It begins to appear that our lives are actually formed by events beyond our control.

Shakespeare observed that the world is a stage and we are just actors reading our lines & following stage directions written for us by some unseen Writer/Director.

I tend to see life as a movie, since I am a product of the second half of the last century. It is a very realistic movie with not only Technicolor, digital sound, and 3-D, but also taste, smell, & touch. Very realistic but a movie (story) nonetheless, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

And one day, I believe, the words “THE END” will appear, the screen will go dark, the lights will go on, & we will be amazed to discover the reality that was all around us all the time – that reality being, we are all living our own soap opera, which might be entitled “My Life In This World.”

If life as we know it is actually determined for us, our perception of “reality” immediately undergoes a complete reversal. For instance, fear and guilt are immediately transformed into phantoms or specters, no more “real” than villains on a movie screen. There cannot be any fear or guilt where there can be no responsibility assigned to actions and decision-making.

If I am living out my life passively rather than as an initiator of action, then “I” am not doing anything myself, either “good” or “bad.” I am simply following instructions. I cannot fear the future, for it is not in my hands to determine. And I have no need to feel guilty about the past for I had no hand in determining it.

Nothing is as it appears

Is our world “real”? Or is it some kind of dream state that is no more substantial than a very convincing movie, which has motion, color, & sound, but it, in fact, just one image with nothing behind it?

Here are some very convincing deceptions imposed on us by the gods that humankind in toto believed to be true for millennia:

The sun circles the earth!

Now this is a real gem! What fool would have declared that the earth circles the sun? Only a lunatic, surely (the moon causes madness, you know).

How quickly yesterday’s falsehood becomes today’s sacred cow. I, for one, will not be at all surprised if soon some marvelous breakthrough in quantum physics or cosmology proves that the sun does actually circle the earth. And how smug our kids & grandkids will be that they know something brand new and up-to-date that the old fogies were too backward to grasp. Ah, yes! What goes around comes around.

Other truths of yesteryear now considered passé in most quarters:

The world is flat
The bleeding of patients aids healing
There is One True God not many

Intelligence

As a younger person I saw myself as being of average intelligence, well-educated, traveled – definitely not “retarded.” Years of actual teaching experience, however, taught me otherwise

What I possessed as a young man was a lifelong set of experiences that virtually guaranteed my success in school and also caused me to see myself as one of the bright ones. However, had you put me alone in the wilderness I would have proved to be utterly stupid in the simplest skills of survival.

What all children possess or lack is not intelligence – it’s experience. Kids (and adults as well) either have a set of experiences before entering school capable of insuring success there, or they don’t. Based upon their own past experiences and their maturity they are either “ready” for school or not.

As my teaching career drew to a close, I realized I was treating kids (and their parents!) differently than I did as a beginning teacher. Early on I perceived my job as one of diagnostician. “Here’s where your child needs to improve, and here’s what we need to do to insure improvement.”

Many years later I saw myself as an encourager. “Here is where your child’s gifts lie, and here are all the great things they’re doing already.” Educators pay lip service to the importance of helping each child to reach his full potential. What we really want is for each child to test as high as possible in every area possible. Consequently we become partners in undermining the self-esteem of every child since no child is gifted in every area of concern in our schools. At some point they fail to measure up, or so we imply by our obsession with test scores.

Over the years it becomes clear to most teachers and parents that a child’s abilities and inabilities are set early. Many believe that they are determined at conception & are locked into our DNA. If this is true, then some kids were never intended to be “readers” or “mathematicians” or “musicians” or “athletes.”

Most people are clear about music skills being inherited & therefore unobtainable to those not so gifted. But reading is another area in school in which kids either have the skill or not.