We make our own reality. Every single one of us. And because we do we have compassion for those who make a harsh reality for themselves. There are moments are “perfect”, when inner meets outer. And moments when perfection isn’t enough if I’m going to move forward. But no moment is “better” than any other moment, no pain that’s worse than some other pain, and no breathtakingly awful time that isn’t full of wonder and growth. That’s my humble fucking opinion anyway.
If we really are making our “own reality”, then clearly the vast majority of us love war, random violence, theft, fraud, poverty, disease, starvation, torture, rape, addiction, shitty jobs, disagreement, anger, worry, envy, petty nastiness, and death. And because it’s me making this reality, I only have myself to blame. Everyone else is blameless. It isn’t the oligarchs or the Davos crowd or whoever runs The Empire who is to blame. And there's no way it could have been a malicious creator god. It turns out, instead, that I’m the sole cosmic asshole who’s made this bad movie.
My my. I don’t know why you’re so hostile, if it’s not something you want to believe then don’t believe it. But I can tell by how you just attacked my idea that in fact you do like war and violence, tho this one was just verbal. But it’s the same impulse. Anybody who says something you don’t like deserves your wrath. You’re like a boy Hillary Clinton. But as long as you traffic in blame instead of cause you’ll have your one finger pointing out at everyone else and 3 fingers pointing back at you. You KNOW that you think poorly of yourself or you wouldn’t be so afraid of my idea that you look at yourself for answers. And please, be sure to the obvious finger joke in response. I await you wit.
I would say, very few of us can make our own reality for more than a few stolen hours a day. Some are born into whatever reality they choose. On my best days I can pretend I am in control of my reality, finding Dark Matter. I wrote a story Dark Matter Zombies where I considered I am Dark Matter ha. From your comments here I would say you have a better grasp of your reality then most of us : )
I love your ideas. And thanks for the compliment, but me too, I can only really do it when I’m in a certain space. I’ve seen people born into awful circumstances who made their reality better by believing they could. Most of them are from Viet Nam in the ‘60’s who practice a deep Buddhism—I wish I were as accomplished as they are. But one element they gave me in my search is that creating my own reality isn’t about gaining control of reality, it’s actually more about letting go of the illusion of control. That’s the probably the hardest part for me. Like that scene in some block buster movie where the guy has to step out into the abyss to make the stepping stone appear beneath his feet! Gawd!
Maybe this is the ideal, but I've definitely had long moments that were just unbearable and extremely hard to stay open to. I could really only redeem them long after the pain was over.
And then the mysterious question: who is the "We" or "I" that actually makes this reality? It's definitely not the voice in my head that I tend to identify with most, and it seems to blur with people and things around me. I can't own it, or even see it much of the time.
[Jean, I'm replying to your original comment here because this new Substack interface won't let me comment to your comment below. Apparently, the number of replies in a thread are now limited.]
First, I thought Patrick Powers’s comment below was excellent, and funny. So I was responding to the idea of “we all make our own reality” rather than responding to you personally. My main point in my comment to Patrick Powers is that we ought to give this increasingly popular “I-make-my-own-reality” notion the amount of critical thought it deserves, because while it may seem innocent enough—even an attractive and hopeful idea—our rulers and owners can and will use it against us.
For example, the pandemic? That had nothing whatsoever to do with Dr. Fauci’s corruption or Bill Gates’ greed or media spewing the lies of Big Pharma. Nope, that was me; I was just making my own shitty reality. Fauci and Gates and Pfizer have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for all the death and financial ruin they caused.
The NATO proxy war in Ukraine? That’s just me again making my own reality; it has nothing to do with Victoria Nuland or Blinken or Zelensky or Joe Biden? They didn’t cause it, I did, because I am making my own reality. Or, if I’m homeless, I’m just making my own reality? If I’m poor, I'm just making my own reality? If I’m sick, am I just making my own reality? If I am, that sounds suspiciously like what capitalists and neoliberals tell us at every opportunity--that every bad thing happens because we are lazy, or because we made stupid investments, or because we’re just not ambitious or smart enough. The capitalists are quick to tell us that all bad things happen because we deserve them, because it obviously isn’t the fault of the capitalist system. So, in any tyrannical system, the ruler will just love it if we assume all responsibility for our own reality because that lets the ruler or the elites or other parasites off the hook.
However, just to be safe, if you really are making this reality—if you really are Vishnu dozing on a lily pad and dreaming the world—then how about sending me the numbers for the next Powerball jackpot. Oh, and putting Fauci in prison and ending the War in Ukraine would also be nice, and maybe could you throw a few million votes to RFK, jr. in the next election.
Whatever. As I’ve said before, do what you want. I don’t care if you believe my ideas. I don’t even care if you make fun of them. (Actually, that just tell me more about you and the level of your awareness). But it makes answering you pointless as it seems you’re not open to anything new, you just want to repeat over and over how horrible everyone else is and not look at yourself and how you’re contributing to this horror show by saying it’s out there and not in you.
We make our own reality. Every single one of us. And because we do we have compassion for those who make a harsh reality for themselves. There are moments are “perfect”, when inner meets outer. And moments when perfection isn’t enough if I’m going to move forward. But no moment is “better” than any other moment, no pain that’s worse than some other pain, and no breathtakingly awful time that isn’t full of wonder and growth. That’s my humble fucking opinion anyway.
We make our own reality? Then I'm not doing a very good job.
If we really are making our “own reality”, then clearly the vast majority of us love war, random violence, theft, fraud, poverty, disease, starvation, torture, rape, addiction, shitty jobs, disagreement, anger, worry, envy, petty nastiness, and death. And because it’s me making this reality, I only have myself to blame. Everyone else is blameless. It isn’t the oligarchs or the Davos crowd or whoever runs The Empire who is to blame. And there's no way it could have been a malicious creator god. It turns out, instead, that I’m the sole cosmic asshole who’s made this bad movie.
Or, wait, maybe it is you.
My my. I don’t know why you’re so hostile, if it’s not something you want to believe then don’t believe it. But I can tell by how you just attacked my idea that in fact you do like war and violence, tho this one was just verbal. But it’s the same impulse. Anybody who says something you don’t like deserves your wrath. You’re like a boy Hillary Clinton. But as long as you traffic in blame instead of cause you’ll have your one finger pointing out at everyone else and 3 fingers pointing back at you. You KNOW that you think poorly of yourself or you wouldn’t be so afraid of my idea that you look at yourself for answers. And please, be sure to the obvious finger joke in response. I await you wit.
what's gender got to do with it?
I would say, very few of us can make our own reality for more than a few stolen hours a day. Some are born into whatever reality they choose. On my best days I can pretend I am in control of my reality, finding Dark Matter. I wrote a story Dark Matter Zombies where I considered I am Dark Matter ha. From your comments here I would say you have a better grasp of your reality then most of us : )
I love your ideas. And thanks for the compliment, but me too, I can only really do it when I’m in a certain space. I’ve seen people born into awful circumstances who made their reality better by believing they could. Most of them are from Viet Nam in the ‘60’s who practice a deep Buddhism—I wish I were as accomplished as they are. But one element they gave me in my search is that creating my own reality isn’t about gaining control of reality, it’s actually more about letting go of the illusion of control. That’s the probably the hardest part for me. Like that scene in some block buster movie where the guy has to step out into the abyss to make the stepping stone appear beneath his feet! Gawd!
Disregard that pap.
Me either sometimes. Most of us aren’t, it seems. But to me it was like learning to cook. The more I worked at it, the better my meals got.
This was meant for Ian, but landed way down here. Sigh.
Maybe this is the ideal, but I've definitely had long moments that were just unbearable and extremely hard to stay open to. I could really only redeem them long after the pain was over.
And then the mysterious question: who is the "We" or "I" that actually makes this reality? It's definitely not the voice in my head that I tend to identify with most, and it seems to blur with people and things around me. I can't own it, or even see it much of the time.
Full marks, Jean. Hard to beat that.
[Jean, I'm replying to your original comment here because this new Substack interface won't let me comment to your comment below. Apparently, the number of replies in a thread are now limited.]
First, I thought Patrick Powers’s comment below was excellent, and funny. So I was responding to the idea of “we all make our own reality” rather than responding to you personally. My main point in my comment to Patrick Powers is that we ought to give this increasingly popular “I-make-my-own-reality” notion the amount of critical thought it deserves, because while it may seem innocent enough—even an attractive and hopeful idea—our rulers and owners can and will use it against us.
For example, the pandemic? That had nothing whatsoever to do with Dr. Fauci’s corruption or Bill Gates’ greed or media spewing the lies of Big Pharma. Nope, that was me; I was just making my own shitty reality. Fauci and Gates and Pfizer have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for all the death and financial ruin they caused.
The NATO proxy war in Ukraine? That’s just me again making my own reality; it has nothing to do with Victoria Nuland or Blinken or Zelensky or Joe Biden? They didn’t cause it, I did, because I am making my own reality. Or, if I’m homeless, I’m just making my own reality? If I’m poor, I'm just making my own reality? If I’m sick, am I just making my own reality? If I am, that sounds suspiciously like what capitalists and neoliberals tell us at every opportunity--that every bad thing happens because we are lazy, or because we made stupid investments, or because we’re just not ambitious or smart enough. The capitalists are quick to tell us that all bad things happen because we deserve them, because it obviously isn’t the fault of the capitalist system. So, in any tyrannical system, the ruler will just love it if we assume all responsibility for our own reality because that lets the ruler or the elites or other parasites off the hook.
However, just to be safe, if you really are making this reality—if you really are Vishnu dozing on a lily pad and dreaming the world—then how about sending me the numbers for the next Powerball jackpot. Oh, and putting Fauci in prison and ending the War in Ukraine would also be nice, and maybe could you throw a few million votes to RFK, jr. in the next election.
Whatever. As I’ve said before, do what you want. I don’t care if you believe my ideas. I don’t even care if you make fun of them. (Actually, that just tell me more about you and the level of your awareness). But it makes answering you pointless as it seems you’re not open to anything new, you just want to repeat over and over how horrible everyone else is and not look at yourself and how you’re contributing to this horror show by saying it’s out there and not in you.
Individualize the problem and Blame the victim much?
"for those who make a harsh reality for themselves."
Lol. It’s like looking in a mirror. I said exactly the same thing in my 30’s. But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. BD.