We see things not as they are but as we are. This means that
our reality is a bit of a hallucination. We live in a kind of
waking dream. We can't learn to see until we admit we are blind.
This is not K-12 curricula. Reality, Impression, Imagination,
Creativity. This progression begins with our impression of what
is and it's always different.
Our perception is integrally linked with our own personal state of mind, state of sprit, state of energy and state of understanding at any given time. These vectors on our perception of the world around us clearly have a dramatic influence. And it can be said that each of us have a unique perspective of our life experience.
This is not a new concept. Here is an excerpt of the Introduction from Meg Blackburn Losey Ph.D. book, "The Secret History of Consciousness":
"The human experience appears to be a complex enigma, subject to everyday
influences that contribute to what we do, feel, know, think we know, and believe,
as well as how we actually live our lives. We use everything and everyone around
us as reflections of ourselves to tell us if we are succeeding, if we fit in, if we have
done a good job, and even to measure our happiness."
So clearly, our social habit of interconnection, feedback and allowing others to determine or define ourselves plays a major role in our perception of what we see and understand. Nowhere is this more visible than in high school. Rather than merely a place of higher learning, it is a fertile hotbed of social dynamics that can serve to influence people for the rest of their lives.
Because we see things as we are and we are as we allow and depend on others to determine who we are, "this means that our reality is a bit of a hallucination". Perhaps it is this second aspect that plays such a major role in a teenager's life, parenting a teen is impossible at times. As the old saying goes, children look to their parents for everything, teenagers know it all and thirty-year-olds apologize to their parents.
In any case, how can we free ourselves from these overwhelming influences to be ourselves? Or must we be relegated to what the Introduction above continues to say?
"As we use external measures to mirror our experiences, we also become
stagnant, stuck in our everyday lives, with only imaginings toward greater
experiences to keep our hopes up that someday things will change."
Is there a way to be or become our true selves, absent of the trappings of external approval and constant distraction? Must we continually live in a state of unrest, desperately looking for fulfillment or a way to live more fully?
Eckhart Tolle in his book, "The Power of Now", describes briefly his life before the realization that this not be the case:
"Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety
interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am
I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life.
One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early
hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling
many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been.
The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room,
the distant noise of a passing train - everything felt so alien, so hostile, and
so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world.
The loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the
point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? I could feel that a deep
longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger
than the instinctive desire to continue to live".
Is this what we have to look forward to? This is what I am describing when I say that "we live in a kind of waking dream". This wrenching desperation that accompanies every waking moment. And there is no distraction that can cure this, no drug, no religion, no fairy tale.
And millions upon millions are feeling and living in this "waking dream".
We must admit that we cannot see who we really are. "We can't learn to see until admit we are blind". We must stop lying to ourselves that it will somehow get better if we continue to delay the truth. The truth that we are not living the full expression of who we all really are.
And so many young people and teenagers are beginning to feel this desperation at an earlier and earlier age. Suicide and self-loathing and desperate nights only mildly mitigated by favorite distractions seem to be the norm these days.
How can we be Creative if we don't know who we are? How can we stoke the fires of imagination if we can't even get out of bed without the greatest of effort? Our impressions must change toward reality - a reality of life with sound optimism and self-respect. We all must be valued and considered precious.
We must change US to see what is real. For what is real is currently so far beyond our reach we are all in a dreamlike state of distractions and dummied-down entertainment.
If we change, it all changes. But how?
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