Reality

We all pretty much buy into the reality our parents feed us as we grow up. And for the most part this works for us until we reach adulthood and find out we are ill equipped to deal with the reality in front of us. There are many reasons for the trauma of being unprepared for dealing with the world we are tossed into, but I like to label it lack of awareness. MY GOD we believe so strongly that through our intellect and ego, we have reality by the balls and are even willing to die for our illusion of reality.
But our true reality is constantly breaking down the illusions of ego and intellect and because we identify with these illusions, go through a lot of pain and suffering. Attachment causes pain, so the path of unattachment is the answer to this problem.

 

Yes, the Buddhist philosophy inspires us to let go of attachments and to be aware in the moment also called mindfulness. The opposite I guess is losing one's mind in a self deluded fantasy.

Much of society from religion to media to politics help perpetuate these illusions in order to control people's thoughts and behaviors.

Notice how Russia has kidnapped children in order to infuse their propaganda into their young minds. They realize they can't appropriate part of a country without controlling the minds of future generations.

 

Nothing is certain, not even that. We might feel that when we're "grown up", we're finally in touch with reality, but who knows? To me, life is essentially a gamble, inevitably involving faith--which Luther defined as a "joyful bet". Basically, I'm an existentialist. But as a gambling man, I prefer educated bets based as much as possible on science, evidence, and experience, and informed judgment. Yes, I know there are philosophers who pooh, pooh all of these, but I see no alternative. Freud and Jung convinced me that we're all powerfully influenced by unconscious needs and drives we're not even aware of, and ego defense mechanisms that keep us from realizing when we're out of touch with reality. I hope being aware of these can help us recognize them when they raise their ugly heads, but I think it would be naive to suppose we're really free of them. Yet I operate in the hope that there is an objective reality out there, and I can get some inkling of it by trying to be as rational as I can in making life decisions.

I was raised in a very conservative Republican family in rural Oklahoma, "Buckle of the Bible Belt". It was like being raised by Fox News. But my life experiences brought me in touch with people who thought much differently than I did. Early on, the nuns told my folks I'd be better off in the public school (like being kicked out of East Germany during the Cold War when they were shooting everybody who tried to escape.) This exposed me to what sociologists called "cross pressures". My best friends were Calvinists, who told me I'd go to hell if I stayed Catholic, when my church was telling me I'd go there if I didn't--the classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't" dilemma. Things got worse when I got to college, and was exposed to atheists and Darwin. I remember contacting the censor librorum of my diocese for permission to read some of the required readings that were on the Index of Forbidden Books. (From his reaction, I got the impression I was the first person who did that since the Inquisition.) Anyhow, I emerged from the experience an agnostic liberal. Later in life, I had a life changing experience--religious awakening, psychotic break, whatever--that made me the religious zealot and political progressive that I still am today. I find inspiration in the scriptures and traditions of all the major religions and some minor ones, as well-- not to mention atheist literature. Today, I'm a Methodist and Democrat. Metamorphosis! Am I in touch with reality? Who knows? I try my best.

 

I see the problem in todays society, as an intense desire by people to belong and be one of the lads, thus suppressing their individual personality. Jane suffers this to some extent and we have fallen out over it on more than one occasion.
Going right back to my schooldays, while all my friends were raving about the latest gormless pop stars, particularly those beetle things, I headed off to the opera house. Likewise, when they went off to a football match, I found an art gallery. My fascination for science and engineering, led me to all sorts of places, including nuclear power stations. When they found me wandering around they were somewhat puzzled, but loved explaining everything. If they told me about a new technology at another plant, off I went.
This somehow led to my fascination with the theatre and film studios, so when a got a part time job at the local cinema, I automatically assumed that I would be showing the films, father than selling popcorn. Somehow, they just agreed and it happened.
This led me to give up my ambition to become a cardio thoracic surgeon and join the theatre, where history was made when due to my technical background, I was appointed as chief engineer at a major London theatre in time for my 21st birthday. The previous youngest appointment was a guy aged 46.
I met Fred Zinnemann and Richard Attenborough to open their films and the rest is history.

Hopefully this will inspire people reading this thread to be themselves, rather than follow the majority and join the flock.
Far from being shunned, my football and beetle loving friends stayed in touch and still call me for a chat to this day.

For my illustration of my point, I will revert to opera. The characters may have been stereotypical, but Gilbert and Sullivan really enjoyed sending them up.
An almost forgotten fact, is that the UK government unsuccessfully attempted to ban this operetta. It was a send up, following them appointing a first lord of the admiralty from among their sheep. He had never set foot on a ship before.

The relevant lines.

They offered me a partnership and that type of ship was the only ship that I ever had seen.

I always voted at my parties call and never thought of thinking for myself at all.