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Life’s an Illusion…
by: Gene Simmons
I’ll get right to the
point. Life is not necessarily what we think it is. And no, I’m not
going to extrapolate this to the extreme to try to convince you that
we really exist on some obscure planet in a distant spiral galaxy
and that all of this we’re experiencing as “Life” is only a dream.
Of course, it is kind of cool to think that we could waking up any
time now, wandering out to the kptfrun to put on the cuggy and then
stepping out on the prafo to watch the bos rise and enjoy the sounds
of the bilbs as they greet the morning. We naturally, would be all
the more enlightened because of the dream experience of the previous
night and could therefore anticipate an even more productive,
enjoyable day at the Snark assembly plant. (Does excessive caffeine
intake cause everyone to think weird stuff like that? Probably just
me, huh?)
Where were we? Oh
yeah, the illusion thing… Let’s start with the physical, material
stuff. Everything you see is not as it appears – or as it is
interpreted by our little brains. When we look around, we “see” all
kinds of solid forms. Computers, desks, paper, chairs, walls, books,
etc. These things not only look solid, they feel solid and can be
held, moved, sat upon, used to support other solid things - and
broken. So they’re all composed of some densely packed material and
therefore are completely “solid”, right?
Not even close,
Martha. When you get down to the itty bitty particles that all of
these nice solid objects are made of, you’re gonna find only little
teeny tiny bits of energy, specks of particles and a hell of a lot
of space between them. In fact, there’s a bunch more space than
there are specks of particles. Here’s one of the analogies I can
relate to easily. If we arbitrarily designated the nucleus of an
atom (the combination of the neutrons and protons in the center of
an atom that contain just about all of the atom’s mass) as the size
of a grapefruit, the rest of the atom that is the electron cloud
(little negatively charged particles that are zipping around the
nucleus like a bat outta hell) would take up a space equivalent to a
large football stadium. Hmm, let’s see. Grapefruit is the “solid”
stuff – football stadium is the space and energy stuff. Yeah,
there’s a hell of a lot of space inside those little atom guys.
Of course, when these
little bundles of specks and energy (it would take about a hundred
million of ‘em laid end to end to stretch out to a length of
approximately one centimeter) share their electrons to bond with
another atom – or atoms – to form molecules… and then these
molecules link together using the energy of their foundation atoms,
we can wind up with materials that appear and act like they’re
completely solid. OK, for those of you who may tend to get picky
here, we also wind up with other similar things we can touch such as
gas (air) and liquid – the other two states of matter that make up
our world.
So where’s that leave
us? Surrounded by, living with, eating, drinking, using and yes,
even mating with “things” that are mostly space and energy. (I think
I just saw several married ladies’ hands go up to question the
energy part of that last statement. Please put your hands down. You
know what I mean…)
Our physical, material
world then is not exactly what we normally perceive it to be. And,
it’s a pretty sure bet that the rest of our little world operates
pretty much along those same lines. Our perceptions of ourselves, of
those around us and the events and situations in our lives and the
rest of the world are shaped primarily by our inputs and experiences
to this point in our lives. Depending on the “quality” of our
programming so far, our personal perceptions of this world can range
from fairly realistic to way outta whack. The great thing about this
though, is that other’s perceptions of our perceptions are tinted by
their own personal or collective experiences (programming) so as a
result, reality (if there is such a thing) clouds up really quick.
Whoa… I think I just gave myself a headache
Yes, it’s often
extremely difficult to determine where skewed perception ends and
reality begins. Of one thing we can be sure. Our individual
perceptions of life are the foundations for our personal reality. If
your reality is not everything you desire – if it’s not bringing you
the enjoyment of life you feel you deserve – then it’s worth putting
forth a little effort to examine your “programming” to see if there
aren’t a few changes you’d like to make in your thought processes
and the way you’re viewing life. It can be well worth the effort.
While you’re doing
that, I really do need to get rid of my headache. I think I’ll go
pour a cup of cuggy and go out on the prafo to watch the bos rise…
About The
Author
Gene, through
NuPathz.com, provides an easy reading self-help blog along with
affordable books and materials written to help folks find the road
to a more enjoyable lifestyle, to pass on some of life’s “secrets
for survival” in a chaotic world & offer a few smiles along the way.
It's a down-to-earth, simple approach to discovering a better life.
You can visit Gene at
http://www.nupathz.com/
gene@nupathz.com
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