I. Reality - Am I Cuckoo?
AM I CUCKOO?
re·al·i·ty /rēˈalədē/ noun
the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
"he refuses to face reality"
synonyms: the real world, real life, actuality; truth; physical existence
"distinguishing fantasy from reality"
Almost ten years ago, the world was treated to an epic mind bend when in short succession The Secret and then What the Bleep? hit popular culture. The take away was that YOU CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY. The Secret uses “ancient” “secret” teachings to basically coach positive thinking. What the Bleep? delves into quantum physics and theory to show that the physical laws of this reality are different than the laws that govern things on the quantum level…which is actually the same “stuff” the physical world is made of, just really, really, really tiny or invisible, like energy and thought. It talks about the stuff between the stuff that isn’t quantifiable. Fascinating.
These movies introduced us to a host of scientists, philosophers, doctors, priests, writers, gurus, creative geniuses, and charlatans. As well as some who defy definition.
Many of us went happily down the rabbit hole of possibility. We gobbled up everything we could get our hands on that would somehow validate our hope that there really was a secret to happiness and corroborate our suspicion that we could somehow control our future or alter our present (and possibly levitate, solve the mysteries of the universe, talk to God, and get the inside scoop on what was going to happen in the final season of Game of Thrones). Most of us couldn’t grasp the assertion that we could alter our past, so we conveniently stepped around that topic.
In our quest to somehow “get” ourselves, some of us (present company immersedly {OK, apparently that is not a word, but it should be} included) went to great lengths to answer the questions that have plagued mankind for eons: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What’s it all about? Where do I go from here? Am I different? Am I insane? Is the world benevolent or malevolent? Is there a God? Why am I so miserable? How can I be happy? Why can’t I get it? If I get it, will people still like me or will I still like people? Are all humans stupid, or just me, OR am I just smarter than the average bear?...blah, blah, blah.
Through our exhaustive research, sleepless nights, furtive trips to Barnes & Noble, and THOUSANDS of dollars spent on videos, coaching, seminars, subscriptions, and yes, even insane retreats to places like Portland where for a fee you can seek enlightenment from a woman who thinks she is channeling an ancient spiritual being who lived on the island down the way from Atlantis, we sought answers.
cuck·oo/ˈko͞oko͞o,ˈko͝oko͞o/noun
1. a medium-sized long-tailed bird, typically with a gray or brown back and barred or pale underparts. Many cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of small songbirds.
2. INFORMAL a mad person. Adjective mad; crazy.
"people think you're cuckoo"
There are currently over 40,000 books listed on Amazon about the subject of reality. There are 34 on cuckoos, one of which is Princess Unikitty’s Guide to Being Happy. How ironic. Maybe we should all stop right here and just read that book. FYI, Princess Unikitty is a Lego cartoon character who fights the forces of evil negativity in…wait for it…Frowntown.
After three solid decades of earnestly seeking truth, I can positively say that I still don’t have any definitive answers. Not one. What I do have is a storage unit full of boxes of books and a lot more questions. That crazy trip did teach me the limits my rational mind will go when seeking answers to the big questions. Somehow, along the way, I managed to brush my teeth, sometimes pay my bills, and take a genuine stab at a relationship and life – for all the good it did me.
Like it or not, I defined my reality. NOW. We all have. And whether or not you believe that this is just a collapsed reality and there are a million other possibilities, some of which might suddenly appear after the next blink of your eye, or that the floor might crumble out from under you, or that if you wish hard enough you might wake up in the morning to an anonymous check for ten million unearned dollars, or that a spaceship might come down from above and return all of those right handed gloves you’ve lost along the way, you cannot escape the cold, hard fact that you are where you are right NOW. It is the human condition.
Try as I might, it appears that no matter how many times I bash my head up against the rock-hard structure that supposedly isn’t really made of anything solid and I never really touch, it still leaves a mark.
The point is this: I’ve gone far, far down many of these bunny trails of inquisition. I’m not categorically dismissing any of them. Some of these warrens are quite snuggly and comfortable for a while, others are wild and wacky and I can’t wait to visit them again. The labyrinth of understanding I personally have about reality defies all definition, except Webster’s. It is my reality. And we all have our own. For the sake of this purpose, let’s come to some tacit consent on what is within our realm of consideration at this moment.
What we see is really there. There is currently no way that we can bend planes of existence to suddenly bring a parallel into THIS one.
Time operates on a continuum where the past happened, the future will happen, and this is NOW.
There are just some questions that you cannot answer without an element of blind faith.
Magic happens in our minds and occasionally at Disneyland.
It is up to us to meld the magic of our minds with the reality of our existence and still preserve a modicum of rationality.
“the hardest prison to escape from is your mind” ~unknown