Tuesday, December 15, 2015

The real, the unreal, and the imagined


Perhaps today more so than, say, fifty years ago, it is a lot harder to determine what is real and what is not. Technology moves ahead at great speed, and things most of us didn’t even dare dream about fifty years ago are now commonplace.
This makes it interesting to ponder the reality of things, as it proves that what many will say is unreal, a fantasy even, can become reality for the masses in just a few short decades.

Clearly, the reality of things no longer lie in their solid existence, but rather in courageous imagination and the determination to create.
However, that is not by any means a nice sharp line; it is more of a grey area. Because what one person can imagine and ultimately create, to another person will be unreal until the ultimate creation has taken place. And to not let our imagination be dimmed by people who deem it a fantasy, an unrealistic plan that is not ever going to work, those with fertile imagination may keep their visions to themselves until the product of their creation is there for all to see. Whether it is as a finished product or as a prototype.

It makes it hard to determine whether anything we hear or read about has a foundation in reality ~ even when we cannot imagine that particular reality yet ~ or if what is being said about it is, indeed, a fantasy. Something unreal, made up by someone for reasons only that person will know for sure. Is it something invented as an innocent prank, to pull someone’s leg? Or does it have a more negative, perhaps even evil reason why it was concocted?

And yet, that is exactly what we set out to do every day. We read things, hear things; and it is up to us to find out if there is any reality, and truth to it or not. And some things that are unreal; that are bogus thoughts and ideas, built from deceptive arguments can sound very believable!

Our best approach may be to not believe everything we hear and read to be true, and to ask ourselves the question: “Is this real to me, in my life as I am living it today?”

If it is, then there is our answer! Even if it ~ in time ~ will turn out not to be factually true, at least it is part of our current ‘personal truth’.
If it is not, we may be best off with a ‘wait and see’ approach, rather than joining the fray. Giving it time to play out, before we find ourselves being part of it…
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