Get Real?

Have you ever been told that in the past? When you have a varying opinion from another’s, and the person wants you to see things the way they do, they say, “get real.”

But have you ever thought about what this means? I just did, and then I got inspired to write my first post since the release of my latest novella, Eyes (see the Free Books page).

In a world where everyone has their own interpretation of reality, what is “real”? One man’s reality is nothing but fiction to his neighbor, and the neighbor’s reality is nothing but fiction to one man. This suggests to me that the statement, “get real”, seeks to make one unreal just so they could be won over to our own thoughts, our own reality. But if they first of all have to be made unreal, can we truly say they are “getting real?”

Let’s face it. Each person’s life is their own reality. And everyone’s reality differs from the other.

So if everyone’s reality differs, how can there ever be common ground?

That’s where the only force that overrides reality comes in; Truth.

You see, to any given situation there can only be one truth. It doesn’t matter if the truth is not visible; it remains truth. It doesn’t matter if the stubborn try to reject it; truth is truth, and will always be truth.

Hate it. But it’s true.

Dispute it. But it’s still true.

Even deny it. It yet remains true.

If this is true (pun most definitely intended), how about this; instead of trying to make others to, ‘get real’, how about we make them, ‘get true’?

@chosenmich

Virtual Reality

Maybe it’s the fact that I am really immersing myself, these days, in the Sci-fi genre that makes me write this blog post on virtual reality, I don’t know. Or maybe for once it’s really donning on me the ‘reality’ of virtual reality. Virtual Reality, simply put is a, simulated reality—in other words, a fake world.

Call me “The One”, but I have discovered that this world we live in is nothing but a simulated reality. Very much like the fiction tales we read in novels, this world isn’t real. Although, when you’ve lived long enough in it, you grow up thinking it is.

Truth is, we aren’t from earth. We aren’t even from this galaxy. If we were, Chapter 1 our story would have begun the second we were conceived in the womb of our mothers.

But it didn’t, did it? God said he knew us before we were formed—means we existed elsewhere before we were plugged in to the simulation that is earth.

The strange thing about this particular simulation is, the law of cause and effect. Contrary to how many think it works, I choose to believe that while the cause might take place in the Virtual world (earth), the effect might tarry until the day of awakening, when we find ourselves in the Real world (the after life). I didn’t choose to call the real world “heaven” ‘cause there is a “hell”. Every move we make and step we take in the virtual world shapes what reality we end up in.

Life’s Paradox

Hi guys. Took a little hiatus from blogging. Still not sure if I’m back yet…you all know how life can get, you live it, too. I’m not alone. Like I always say, Life is the only story where everyone is the protagonist—at least in their own eyes. At the same time, looking at it through the lens before my brother’s eyes, this story called life has no protagonist. The way I see it, no one deserves to be casted for that role anyway. No one has what it takes. But enough of my ramblings. I’ll ramble on this much later. You bet I will.

For a couple of days, I’ve been studying the behavior of the people around me, watching what makes them tick, what makes them bubble, what makes them take totally impulsive and irrational decisions, what makes them cry, and what makes them breakdown, crawl back into a shell they had hatched out of in the past, and painstakingly rebuild their covering—the very same covering they broke out of. I was also a test subject in this impromptu experiment of mine, and here’s what I discovered: We all do what we do 1.) to be different and 2.) for attention.

Gone are the days when we did things to be accepted. We don’t want to be accepted. We want to stand out. We want to be unique. We want to dye our punk Mohawk hairdos fuchsia pink and get a tattoo that says “No one in this city has swagger like me” for the simple fact that we want to be noticed. Not accepted, noticed. We do it to be different.

At the same time, I find, while we are trying to be different and not “accepted”, we can’t handle being snubbed. I find this strange. I’ve seen traits in me. I used to think I hated attention, and believe me I do (I’d love to change my birth date on Facebook on my birthday just to ward off the myriad of posts, and return it to normal thereafter, but I won’t ‘cause that’s downright childish and immature), but truth be told I appreciate attention. Let’s face it, whether we like it or not, humanity’s basic need is to be loved. We all want someone who would check up on us when we’ve got the blues. We all want someone who would feel genuine concern for us when we are down with even the slightest flu. If we all had people like that in our lives, then Miss World’s dream of “World Peace” is as good as a reality. But truth be told, most of us don’t. This is why I cherish the handful of friends I’m blessed with, not to mention family.

I think it all boils down to the fact that we secretly do want to be accepted. And while we fight “acceptance” by making irrational decisions that’ll make us “different”, we secretly need acceptance. We secretly crave it.

We just don’t know it.

Mich

@chosenmich

Reality vs. Fiction

I sat down one afternoon and began thinking about the power of a story. The power of fiction—guess that could also be the title of this post.

I sat on this day and thought to myself, If it’s impossible in real life, it’s possible in a story. If it’s impossible in a story, it’s impossible in real life.

To put it in a simpler form, fiction makes the impossible possible. I’m one of those folks that believe in the supernatural and the paranormal, you can’t convince me otherwise. I seen, and heard, of some pretty bizarre stuff because of my background. But even with the existence of the supernatural, some things are without a doubt farfetched. For example, a man not being able to distinguish the real world from a dream world (Ted Dekker’s Circle Series), or a writer’s pseudonym—who might have as well been a potential twin he gobbled up in his mother’s womb—coming to life to haunt him (Stephen King’s The Dark Half). These are all impossible scenarios in the real world.

Even though I did mention that what is impossible in fiction is definitely impossible in real life, I’m yet to find a scenario that is totally impossible to tell in a story. In a story I can single handedly amass a great following and become the president of Africa, yes, the entire continent. Nothing’s impossible in a story.

I dare say that even Jesus knew the power of a good story which is why he spoke in parables, an archaic word for fiction if you ask me.

No one wants to see reality being mimicked event-for-event in a story. It is why I say “The world is not enough, so I create an alternate.”