The Nature of Reality

MapQuest was a technological marvel. In the early days of the internet you would. . .

• Visit mapquest.com,

• Enter your departure address,

• Enter your destination address,

• Print the turn-by-turn instructions produced by the system,

• Take your printed directions and find your way to your destination following the directions.

Remarkable as MapQuest was, its limitation was clear: it was on paper.

If you took a wrong turn or were just really bad at following directions, you could still get hopelessly lost; perhaps even worse off than you would have been following your Uncle Steve’s verbal directions scrawled hastily on a napkin.

The functional limitations of MapQuest in its early years are a good parallel to life. We make plans — sometimes sketching them out in painstaking detail — only to be derailed by the unforeseeable: changes in employment opportunities, health, or family circumstances.

Alan Watts offered a revision on the tired refrain “life is what happens when you’re making other plans” when he said:

They fail to live because they are always preparing to live.

It hits a bit different, doesn’t it?

Never and always are dangerous words. No one always does or never does something. The only safe rule is that there is always an exception; always a circumstance when we do something a different way.

So, for Mr. Watts to say, “always preparing to live,” is not accurate. It is, however, evocative. His statement, as you’ve probably gathered, is about being present.

What does it mean to be present?

In its simplest, it means not being mired in the past or the future. It means keeping your focus on the here and now in a natural way. It doesn’t mean abandoning lessons learned from the past or planning for the future, but it does mean holding onto those things lightly.

The gurus are fond of illustrating this idea with an object lesson: take a ball and grip it in your hand with your palm facing down. If you grip the ball as hard as you can, your arm will tire quickly.

Now, turn your hand palm up and only slightly curl your fingers to create a small cradle for the ball. Unless you’re trying this exercise with a bowling ball, you can likely hold the ball palm up with a relaxed hand an order of magnitude longer without issue than palm down, gripping the ball.

Both the past and future are like the ball. It’s okay to hold onto them; just do so lightly. It takes a lot of mental energy to continue gripping the palm-down ball when your arm gets tired. As the pain increases, more of your focus has to be put on maintaining your grip.

Even in the palm up approach, a ball held long enough will begin to cause muscle fatigue.¹ That’s when you set the ball aside. Setting the ball aside is like allowing a thought or memory to float out of the conscious mind; not forgotten just put away for a while.

As we consider our experiences, our actions, and our reactions, a question arises:

What Is Reality?

Jason Arunn Murugesu, Joshua Howgego, and Gilead Amit coauthored a paper in the NewScientist titled, “What is reality? Why we still don’t understand the world’s true nature.”

They quipped:

We are now at a point where it is equally credible to claim that reality is entirely dependent on subjective experience, or entirely independent of it. Reality has never felt so unreal.

Great philosophical clickbait: Reality has never felt so unreal.

Reality — the world or state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

Sitting with thoughts like those for too long can drive most people to feelings of overwhelm and even despair. As I’ve written previously, contemplating the enormity of the universe and all that is unknown used to frighten me as a child.

I believe reality exists, but it’s the nature of the thing that can be perplexing.

The Nature of Reality

Past experiences and future plans inform our worldview. Our cumulative experiences form the framework of how we see the world, even when we’ve abdicated some critical thinking (or most of it) to the talking heads. It’s still a choice, even if made unconsciously.

No two people can experience identical realities. In that way, no matter how similar we are, we are all unique. Individually, it’s impossible to quantify the impact of a choice to wear a red t-shirt today on your entire life. Accumulated, however, each tiny experience and decision gives shape to the reality in which we live, and how we observe it.

Practically speaking, the combinations of experiences and the formation of our worldview are infinite. Therefore, even though some 115 billion people (give or take) have lived on this Blue Marble we call home, every person is unique.

To paraphrase a quote by Brian Greene, sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond our grasp.

Some futurists believe we will arrive at a point where we know everything that can be known. That implies, however, that there are unknowns — meaning we can’t really know everything. Ever.

If you feel a bit of panic setting in, you’re in good company. So, let’s push pause on the conversation and consider one, parting thought from Aristotle as you make plans for tomorrow.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Thanks for reading!

¹If you don’t believe me, find a small ball that only weighs a few ounces and put it in your hand with your palm up and forearm parallel to the floor. See how long you can hold the ball there before you’re in pain.