What is reality?
Let’s take a case on point: why do days seem shorter in
winters? Is it really because time shrinks, or is it my relation to time that becomes
hastier? Psychologists might answer this question through the neural
connections and how fewer sunny hours changes those connections. Biologists
might talk about the concept of internal time and how one’s perception of time
changes in winter as the sun rises late and sets early. All that is fine, but
then there’s my own individual perception about time, something that is
entirely capsulated within myself and how I relate to ‘time’ during winter. I
might find these short days liberating if I am in a state of continuous boredom
or if I am suffering from lack of activities. Or I might slip into depression
given the ‘seasonal affective disorder’ theory, which is the common case with
most people. Or, I might be exaggeratedly bothered by how the little time I have
on one hand and how much I have to do on the other. While the hours remain the
same, twenty-four, how I live within them changes drastically. For example, I find
the mornings to be of two hours only, while in summers a morning session could
be as long as four to six hours. Or the realization that there aren’t any
evenings in winter, only slightly stretched afternoons. But, even the two hours
in the morning or the three to four hours of longer afternoons take a more ‘shrinked’
appearance; as if I am being squeezed within them, suffocating, and wrestling
for periods of idleness and uninterrupted relaxation. A period where my mind
runs out of things to think about, where its activities dwindle down, where
thoughts cease to flow, and I am left with my body, a quiet surrounding, and an
empty mind.
So, what is reality? Is it the fact that days are indeed shorter
in winter because there are fewer sunny hours, or, is it my perception of time
that shrinks, to an exaggerated level during the winter? Does the reality stand
objectively, unaffected by how I perceive it, or there is no objectiveness to
reality, only a subjective perception of how I relate to that which is called ‘reality’?
The former case, I find to be liberating because it solidifies my ‘being’ in
the world, where there are certain things that I can depend upon regardless of
my state. The latter case, which is the matter with me these days, is
existentially terrorizing, or what Kierkegaard termed as ‘angst’. It is at once
a descend of huge sense of responsibility that comes from the realization that
life in itself isn’t anything at all, but how you make it out to be. Moreover, if
I am allowed to divert a little to drive my point home more firmly, doubt plays
a role of a catalyzer in this crisis of rational and empirical breakdown. Why am
I thinking these things? I find myself thinking when I am overwhelmed by all
the involuntary, fierce thoughts. Is what I am thinking real? Or does it even matter
that it is real? And why am I asking so many questions? Why am I changing my
questions so rapidly? And why am I failing to effectively and efficiently convey
all that is going on in my head? How futile words can be; how useless. Or is it
me that is failing and not words? Coming to the point again, is what is going
on inside my head a reflection of the world or only an intellectual frenzy that
will go away just as it arrived. Am I being narcissistic, overly confident,
dwelling in ‘intellectual masturbation’? Or is it truly a metamorphosis of an
intellectual kind that I am going through? A point from where on my thoughts
would only get richer, more nuanced, and transcendental?
An uninterested and unintimidated psychologist, on hearing
all this ‘nonsense’, might quietly point out that I am in a state called ‘mania’.
As it is with people who have bipolar disorder, they go through two alternating
states: one is called depression when the patient might suffer from ‘lack on
interest’ in things, and the other is called ‘mania’ where the patient might
feel over-confident, buoyant, ecstatic, or even euphoric. There is nothing
uniquely ‘grandiose’ going on here, the psychologist might add afterwards; it
is totally normal to be feeling this way. Don’t get too carried away with
yourself. Furthermore, if the therapist is of a satirical type, he/she might
add that ‘You are no genius my dear, simmer down. It will go away’. Yet how
failing it would be, how anticlimactic! All that intellectual activity and the uplifting
sense of being able to do great things – gone. Of no practical use.
But, but, what if even knowing that it is just a ‘state of
mind’ that will wither away with time should not be the cause for such an anticlimactic
conclusion? What if I could channel this energy, this intellectual buoyancy,
and this relentless, palpable belief of doing great things into certain
projects that might have material, real, outcomes? My otherwise fleeting energy
channeled into a staying, effective, useful, real-world changes. This mindset,
however narcissistic still, might be the best use of what I am going through. And
should I be able to, first, put aside the doubts that I have about myself and
my psychological state, and then take a more formal, corporative, and outward
approach towards actualizing my ideas, I might just be able to pull of
something lasting, something useful from this otherwise crushingly overwhelming
mental activity. As for the pinching notion of ‘narcissism’, I would say that
as long as the end goal of my potential projects are outward, even if its
origins are inward, it could be beneficial for others; dare I say, even influential,
inspiring.
Huh, after writing all this, and you reading all this, one
once again comes to the realization that it is but a conversation, a wrestling
conversation, between me and myself. So, once again, what is reality?