Between a Rock...

We're stuck
Inside our own machine

from Apparitions by the Mathew Goode Band

Warning... weird shit... just sayin'.

Have you ever wondered how much of this is real?

I often wonder about things like reality, relationships, world events and why bacon tastes better crispy. But then I'm a pathological wonderer anyway. And I invent words like “wonderer” while contemplating the meaning of Quantum Mechanics, distance, versions of reality and why I'm here and not there because I secretly think I'm some Byzantine, pureed version of Shakespeare, Einstein, George Carlin and burnt toast rolled into an electrified vat of luminescent green goo.

Sometimes I just wake up mentally messy.

So... I'm out minding my own business doing my work thing on a weekday afternoon surrounded by Hugo Boss, Ann Taylor and squeaking patent leather in the downtown area when I happen across a man about my age talking to a rock. Not just any rock, mind you. A big, honkin' boulder. Kind of a cute, greyish sweetheart as boulders go, if you're into that kind of thing. What do I know from rocks? This one could have been a real hottie. Who am I to judge, ya know?

And the conversation, though one sided, was quite lucid and passionate.

It occurred to me our brains are capable of almost anything. I know not why this man's brain has morphed itself into it's own internalized world. Somewhere, the circuits crossed and a world of his own making began creating itself. Or... are they crossed at all? Clinically, this man would likely be diagnosed, in simple terms, as insane though, in his brain, he is not insane at all.

Which begs the question, who's reality is real?

Insane people don't know they're insane. They have their own reality and that experience is as concrete to them as ours is to us.

Which brings me to me. How do I know my reality is the real reality? How do I know I'm not making this all up and what I think is real is simply an internalized movie running incessantly on a loop through alternately misfiring synapses while I'm wearing a lovely white coat with leather straps, buckles, extra long sleeves and arms bow-tied neatly in back? For all I know I, myself, could very well be talking to a padded wall in a brightly lit room while believing I'm watching some dude talk to a slightly balding rock and thinking he's insane.

Perhaps that person I met a while ago or that place I was or that feeling I experienced is no more than a figment of my overly fertile imagination. ~shrug~

I think I can be certain I am in “reality” because I have questions. Those who have created a world of their own likely have few questions. For any problem which may arise in their self-created world, the brain simply creates a solution. Done.

Somewhere along this exploration, Quantum Physics popped into my head.

If our brains are capable of inventing entire internalized world's of our own, why can we not do the same externally? Science has proven we can manipulate particles simply by observing them. Science has also proven particles can be in two places at once. When we dream (or daydream) it's our way of our psyche taking us places we are not but want to be. If Quantum Physics Theory is capable of putting one particle in two places and I am capable of manipulating the result, then I can be in two places at once. Further, if you happen to be dreaming the same thing at the same moment, then we could conceivably be hanging out together. Add in an emotional connection and all hell can break loose!

Which means, in some dual conceived dream, I could very well be sitting on the sofa next to you watching Big Bang Theory reruns. Pass the Doritos, will ya?

As weird as all this seems, there is quite a lot of empirical evidence we can create our own reality. Have you chosen happiness? Have you chosen someone to be with (even if only in your mind)? Have you chosen serenity? Have you chosen your life or simply hoped it would work out? Have you chosen to stay in reality?

Are you where you want to be or are you daydreaming of being somewhere else... with someone else... doing something else? Have you chosen ordinary... or extraordinary?

I suspect those questions may well be between you and a slightly balding rock.

Gotta ask yourself the question, 

where are you now?

from Wiseman by James Blunt