Imagination and reality

Reality is all around us. All we need to do is to look at it, accept it as it is, live in it, making it part of our lives and it becomes the essence of our happiness and enjoyment of life.

Being blind to reality, creating a fictitious image of what we think is reality, in our minds only leads to constant disappointment and misery for ourselves and for others who we falsely regard as causing the obliteration of our image and hence disappointment.

Seeing that a false image exists in our minds only, while reality is everywhere, there is a constant clash between the two, the false image and reality. The result is a feeling of disappointment accompanied by anger and eventually taking action which can harm reality.

Allow me to give you an example from real life.

A person, with a poor self image usually thinks that others also have a poor image of him but he doesn't try to change the way he sees himself, instead he tries to change the way he thinks others see him.

He does this by creating, in his mind; a situation which he believes will bring accolades of admiration from those around him.

Many people like this, choose an imaginary tour which, they believe, few people before them have done, say a tour of Israel, which is famous for its wars, generals, archaeologists, luxury cars and luxury hotels.

For example a winning combination for an imaginary tour that one can tell the folks back home about, would be a tour guide who is also a general and an archaeologist who picks you up, in a stylish debonair flourish at the airport and whisks you to a 5 star hotel where you sip cocktails by the pool while listening to the "general" telling his great exploits of heroism in a charming, broken English with a Hebrew accent.

What happens when the image is shattered? What happens when, instead of a general a very ordinary, elderly guy (myself) appears to drive and guide you for the next 7 days. No flourishes and no airs only plain information and a few stories about historical events in Israel?

At first you are sick with disappointment and you feel like canceling the whole tour but you can't because the guide (myself) absolutely fulfills the contract you have prepaid, leaving you no grounds for a refund. You decide to let him guide you but you suffer because he gives you no cause for dissatisfaction and dismissal, in fact he's quite good, but you suffer because the image you had has been shattered and as far as you're concerned this tour guide (myself) has shattered it.

You bide your time to punish this tour guide for shattering your dream. Finally when the tour is long behind you, you send a letter to the agent telling them how boring and disappointing this guide was, you even manage to find some points which smack of inefficiency.

You have had your revenge on the person who shattered your dream and you have damaged the good name the tour guide (myself), who in fact gave you nothing but good, honest service.

Your intention was simply to cause hurt and you have done that and nothing else. But you have had your revenge and now you feel better.

I write this out of a feeling of hurt having received painful blows in return for love and kindness.

This is a rare event. Not many people are fortunate enough to meet a person who they treat with kindness and gives them blows and hurts them in return.

Ultimately I feel elevated because I have transcended the feeling of hurt and can look down on it as an eagle looks down on a dying creature. He doesn't feel even one iota of sadness. He just accepts it because that is the reality of the world.

Reality is all around us. All we need to do is to look at it, accept it as it is, live in it, making it part of our lives and it becomes the essence of our happiness and enjoyment of life.