The Nature of Reality

The Nature of Reality

Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge
number of illusions in which we all collaborate
willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while
that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked
when reality is torn down around us.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　- J. G. Ballard

　　What was reality?

　　An objective truth? A collective illusion? A major opinion? The product of historical understanding? A dream? A dream. Well, yes, maybe. But if this had been a dream, then it was one from which I hadn't yet woken.

　　But once humans really study things in depth - whether in the artificially divided fields of quantum physics or biology or neuroscience or mathematics or love - they come closer and closer to nonsense, irrationality, and anarchy. Everything they know is disproved, over and over again. The Earth is not flat; leeches have no medicinal value; there is no God; progress is a myth; the present is all they have.

　　And this doesn't just happen on the big scale. It happens to each individual too.

　　In every human life there is a moment. A crisis. One that says, what I believe is wrong. It happens to everyone, the only difference being how that knowledge changes them. In most cases, it is simply a case of burying that knowledge and pretending it isn't there. That is how humans grow old. That is ultimately what creases their faces and curves their backs and shrink their mouths and ambitions. The weight of denial. The stress of it. This is not unique to humans. The single biggest act of bravery or madness anyone can do is act of change.

　　I was something. And now I am something else.

　　I was a monster and now I am a different type of monster. One that will die and feel pain, but one that also will live, and maybe even find happiness one day. Because happiness is possible for me now. It exists on the other side of the hurt.

The Humans, P259-260
Matt Haig
ISBN 978-0-85786-876-3