I’ve spent the better part of the past week and a half attempting to escape my version of reality. A strategic self imposed torment designed in part to cleanse my mind of the dogma I found myself nearly being swallowed by.

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Today I recognized the hypocrisy of attempting to escape something which in it’s typical description can’t actually exist.  There is no objective reality.

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But, I do have to admit…our efforts to escape sure can be fun nonetheless.

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For each of us, in our own way, in our own world; life screams with reality.  It’s yours, theirs, mine – but vastly different to each of us.

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I was reading an article about the failed Rapture that was supposed to happen yesterday.  Aside from my usual observations about religious zealots being great fun to watch I took note of the authors declaration that these fanatics can’t be in touch with reality, particularly since reality was just an illusion.   I’ve probably used that phrase several times myself in an ill-fated attempt to sound philosophical, but never took a moment to try and succinctly explain what that statement means.  Just saying that reality is an illusion isn’t enough. What are the nuts and bolts of that statement?

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Let me build it for you.  Or at the very least, try for once to unravel the twisted coils inside my head into a straight and concise idea.

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Here’s what it means;

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The actual physical world that we interact with, including our bodies, are pretty much empty space, so we can’t interact with it directly.  Instead, our mind uses the senses to create an interpretation based on input from our senses. Our first experience with anything “out there” occurs within our minds.

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Sort of gives new credence to the quote “You only have one chance to make a first impression.”

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What each of us experience is not an illusion, but neither is it a true representation of our world.  It’s all created in our minds from energy bouncing around.

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Because everyone has a different mind and they are not receiving exactly the same energy inputs as anyone else, no two people will have the same interpretation of reality. So in other words, for all practical purposes there is no objective reality.

Reality, therefore, as a whole is an illusion, but very real for each of us in our own reality, in our own world.