Home from Boston - got in an hour ago. Sorry for not writing faithfully when I was travelling. The days sped by and I thought it was more important to be present with my mother and sister versus sequestering myself and writing this blog while they waited for me to be available. The trip was exactly as I knew it would be. Once I cleared the mental decks and kept, front and center in my mind, the Landmark teaching, "Accept other people for who they are and who they're not," I was totally open for any and all experiences. What surprised me (and my sister) was that I ended up being an important catalyst for change in their lives.
Ma mere and sis share a cozy home with my sister's husband Martin and they've already done most of the heavy lifting. When my mother moved in, over a year ago, it came right on the heels of my sister's diagnosis of breast cancer and, for a very long time, it was really tough for all - my mother feeling like a fish out of water, my sister trying to meet everyone's needs and her husband trying to be a needed balm. And the amount of possessions my mother moved with her totally overwhelmed the little house. In the last year, the focus has been on getting her settled and comfortable - two bedrooms for her living space, a wall removed between, closets customized, assimilating her furniture into their space.
BUT, what's suffered is my sister's personal space and her aesthetic need for simplicity - she's been so busy doing for others. So that is what we worked on - redecorating her living room to her own taste, organizing her basement office, getting rid of stuff, stuff, stuff. And, as I experienced when I went on my own big purge, with each large black plastic bag that left her home for either the dumpster or the donation center, she felt lighter. And most importantly she describes the feeling as a logjam that's been broken free. I know she will continue what we started. As for me, I'm gratified. It was a fun, low-key vacation, we all got along and I fulfilled my mandate of "making a difference in other peoples' lives."
Last post, I talked about the reality articles I read in New Scientist that shook the ground under me. I want to talk about them. The articles build on each other like an academic course. The first article entitled, Reality, The Definition is prerequisite reading for the ones that follow - or you'll be lost. So let's start with that one first.
There are five definitions of reality that are considered and discussed. And you probably have your own ideas of how you distinguish what is real from what is not. Most people subscribe to one of more of the following three reality tests:
- Maybe you think reality is anything that can be sensed by one of your five senses. That would seem to be a good litmus test but it ignores things that we can't see like the number seven or inflation or even the recently discovered Higgs Bosun particle that we now know exists but is too tiny to be seen and experienced by any of our senses.
- How about applying a reality standard that enlists a large group of people and anything the group agrees is real is indeed, real. The article talks about the fallacy with this test as well, citing mass hallucinations and delusions. The example given - a population of people in Asia who all agree in the idea of "koro" in which they observe that their genitals shrink back into their body. Not so, but they all believe it as fact and reality. So it seems this group test of reality is also fraught with problems.
- Another test as posited by the science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick holds that reality can be measured by the resistance it puts up. He says reality is, "that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away." Sounds reasonable, right? Article pokes holes in this theory too, asking, "What about stock markets? If everyone stops believing in them, they would cease to exist." And yet they're real, right?
According to the article, "there are two definitions of reality that are much more successful."
- In the first, reality is put to a different test. In a world without human desire and intentions, would the "thing" still exist? This is getting interesting because things like war and language and marriage don't pass this test! "This definition removes human subjectivity from the picture."
- The final test considered is one where something is only deemed to be real if it is not dependent on something else. That reduces reality to ONLY the basic building blocks - "whatever entities stand at the bottom of the chain of dependence....reality is confined to the unknown foundation on which the entire world depends." Subscribe to this definition of reality and you have to conclude that most everything around us is not real (cities, mountains, people, etc.)
These questions are what keep physicists, philosophers and mathematicians awake at night (and me lately). In the articles that follow, the last two reality tests: the "world without us" and the reductionist theory are the two with the most credibility. If you're like me, you've not thought much about reality, living your life accepting your own reality tests as proof of something's reality. And yet it doesn't take much to prick that bubble and realize how misguided that is.
And the question begs to be asked, "Why should we care about this subject?" (and maybe you don't and am weary of the discussion before it's much started). My thought is that much of the suffering in our lives is based on false realities. We declare something as true and immutable and it holds us in a vice. What if we let go of our convictions, realize that much of what we hold true are tricks of our brain, and open ourselves wide to possibilities that before seemed unreal and impossible? It's then, I think, much of our suffering would fall away. The Buddhists have this figured out in their own way. Even my Martin had on his website the quote, "Float in the sea of non-attachment and discover a world of possibilities." Hard to be so attached to something if you come to realize it's not real!
Challenge today is complete cuz you got to this paragraph which means you slogged through these basic concepts. Tomorrow, I'll summarize the second article that is guaranteed to rock your world if you're at all a curious person.
Peace,
Sarah
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