Reflections of Reality

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I have found recently that the way i write, or get ideas for how to write has been undergoing a sort of evolution. I think of the most off the cuff ideas generally at the lower points of my mentality, or when boredom has been running through my rife through my mind, as if i was hungover after a heavy night out. Its almost like when your body craves fluid- my mind begs me for some form of idea, something to make your heart beat and soul truly sing.

It’s during one of these “hangovers” that i got to thinking about what it means to live in “reality.” The word in itself gives connotations to ideas of “how you feel the world should be” and there being “nothing i can do- its just how it is.”

Its a word we use at the end of a debate, when your out of ideas and your conversational armoury has run dry- this is the time when “reality” takes a hold. It’s very pessimistic in the emotional thoughts and feelings that are connected to even saying that word, like admitting defeat. I wander how much we know about reality, about how the world tries so hard to be real, yet so often seems such a hoax and how this compares to our own personal reality.

I’ve written enough already about the obsessive desire it feels like society tries to convince us “their” way is the only way. How it seems like our only purpose in life is to fit into the ideologies and beliefs of a wider audience, to gain followings and gain this so called “ideological reality.” This is something that connects to our personal reality i think, because i feel there have been times in deep misery or longing when we tend to stray from the morals of uniqueness, personal knowledge and ideals and wander, to just for a second…in whimsical curiosity- look to the other side.

A look across to the other side and the grass always seems a little greener over there- so you wander. You think “i bet that grass tastes amazing!” even though it’s just another way to lose another aspect of your reality, forging a path to eventually become nothing more than a reflection of your former self.

Through all this revolves the argument that we are born of the circumstances presented to us throughout numerous stages of our lives. Its a powerful argument and its something i’ve considered to be true for a number of years, but theres more to it, that you as a human being are so beautifully complex its near impossible to define who you are or who you want to be through your past, your present or even your idealised future.

I find we as people, in 2019, will take the easy way out of an emotional problem so as to not deal with it. Now, take this as you will- I’m not saying the potentially massively terrible actions or events that have happened to people aren’t playing a part in their emotional existence and how ones personality is evolving from that point, but what worries me is what is being lost as a result of this event.

Its like i said- we are being defined by our circumstances because we are being told that’s what is supposed to happen and what you’re supposed to do in reaction to it. We are all guilty of it i think because it’s been drilled into us in such a way to not even notice what we are doing. Its like we are so unsure what to do- so you end up listening to people who will never see the world like you do- to then end up living through their ideal of your situation. Ignoring the overall issue that nobody else has ever felt what you’ve felt or been through what you’ve been through in the way you’ve done it.

The way you react to an event is always unique to you.

We fear repetitions of the circumstances that caused so much anguish the first time round, so we wrap ourselves up so much to avoid it happening so it never will, but at the same time ignoring a part of you that makes you feel special, that makes you feel alive. Say a racing driver has a terrible crash, should they quit and never race again- or should he keep going because of the way it makes them feel?

Obviously a fairly acute example but its almost like we are all constructing mental museums- a nod to the person we once were, while lost in the fear of what we could be. The end result is inevitable, because it’s nothing. No way to go back to the pain of before, but no way forward to the potential of what the future could hold for you, depending on what you choose to do.

We walk around our Museum of Reflections, seeing how you felt about yourself, the things you loved to do, people you once cared about, people you loved- through nothing more than glass screens and reflections. It’s easy to become so lost behind things that have happened, feelings you have experienced and people you have lost. It’s an emotional scapegoat we have all been using for years and i feel like we’re all losing out on ourselves as we try and stare at the world through a mere reflection of who we used to be.

Just because something happens you shouldn’t lose something, but it should add something to you- this is the difference between change and evolution.

The alternative is we risk putting up more and more glass cases, more and more parts of us lost to the land of maybe in reflections of who we used to be- to the point where one day you wake up yo someone you don’t even recognise in the mirror. Our personalities as people have become so fragile its as if one little tap could shatter us all into a million pieces.

I say let it. Let yourself be broken, let yourself feel the pain you don’t want to feel, feel everything that scares you. Embrace the fear and accept the pain for what it is if it doesn’t go how you hoped. There is no failure only learning and no change just evolution. See the reflections of yourself and what you once were, windows into memories which have caused you to build walls higher and higher, not to get away from everyone else, but to get away from yourself, in some hope this way you could believe society may actually accept you.

And remember – they will never accept you. Not unless you bend or twist to their ways, becoming a carbon copy of the rest of the world, while nothing more than a reflection in a window of what you once were. Be yourself and don’t worry about everyone else, they are generally too busy worrying about what you’re thinking to worry about what you’re doing.

If we don’t we risk becoming nothing more than a Reflection of our Reality.

Yours, with love as always.
DR x

Photo Credit- Yaz Artuner