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The ramifications of reality vs. those of the imagination


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So many good things are always happening in reality and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the imaginations of those who try to ignore reality.

 

Yet as in another thread it is mentioned how people are prone to being drawn to fake people, fake reality, fake lives.

 

Is it because that is easier? Is it because we fail to see the good things in reality?

Whats the deal?

 

Discuss?

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It's because fake people and fake realities are manufactured by people.

 

People don't go to the trouble of manufacturing things unless they feel they're going to get something out of it. And where the acquisitive think they will benefit, they will often go to extreme lengths to implement the strategy they're using to get it.

 

It's one thing when the 'product' is acknowledged as fake: a novel, a movie, a scary ride at the amusement park -- but it can get serious when the product is a political paradigm, or, for that matter, a politician, a 'non-fiction' news story, article or book, or a medical study, a supposed scientific theory, or a whole belief system.

 

Then we call them cons.

 

And con men and women will often stop at almost nothing to put over their con.

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I think your answer lies here:

 

 

So many good things are always happening in reality and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the imaginations of those who try to ignore reality.

 

 

See, this may be your own experience (and mine), and yet for many people, it's not the case. A lot of people's lives, for whatever reason, suck. They may be poor and have had little opportunity to expand their opportunities. They may be stuck in a {censored}ty job, a {censored}ty marriage, or a crappy town where nothing ever happens. They may be chronically ill, physically or mentally. They may well have been abused or neglected as a child and have zero self esteem as a result, unable to rid themselves of their feelings of self hatred and inadequacy, and quite possibly unable to afford any help for this.

 

For people in these situations, reality isn't so great. Particularly because people in these sorts of situations feel (perhaps with justification) hopelessly stuck in them. So they become very vulnerable to getting sucked into fake realities - imaginings of people and worlds that seem better than the reality they live with.

 

If, from our perspective, these fake people and worlds seem like ridiculous cardboard cutouts - well, they are. Someone without a well defined sense of identity tends to latch onto over-simplified, exaggerated caricatures of identity. If you have trouble inhabiting your own skin, you have to wear somebody else's - and it's going to be a superficial mask in most cases, because you're just acting the part. To get too deep into it would start probing too close to the reality you're trying to escape.

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I think your answer lies here:




See, this may be your own experience (and mine), and yet for many people, it's not the case. A lot of people's lives, for whatever reason, suck. They may be poor and have had little opportunity to expand their opportunities. They may be stuck in a {censored}ty job, a {censored}ty marriage, or a crappy town where nothing ever happens. They may be chronically ill, physically or mentally. They may well have been abused or neglected as a child and have zero self esteem as a result, unable to rid themselves of their feelings of self hatred and inadequacy, and quite possibly unable to afford any help for this.


For people in these situations, reality isn't so great. Particularly because people in these sorts of situations feel (perhaps with justification) hopelessly stuck in them. So they become very vulnerable to getting sucked into fake realities - imaginings of people and worlds that seem better than the reality they live with.


If, from our perspective, these fake people and worlds seem like ridiculous cardboard cutouts - well, they are. Someone without a well defined sense of identity tends to latch onto over-simplified, exaggerated caricatures of identity. If you have trouble inhabiting your own skin, you have to wear somebody else's - and it's going to be a superficial mask in most cases, because you're just acting the part. To get too deep into it would start probing too close to the reality you're trying to escape.

 

 

That is a good description of it.

In a way what you are describing is still the inward focus of an individual though, and i am counting situations they are allowing them selves to be in; Jobs, marriages, crappy towns etc. Those are all choices for adults.

And as you know the inward focus is a magnet for particles of non reality, in the bad way.

What i am trying to get at a bit more is a focus on the external instead, real reality, the non people world, i know i keep mentioning nature, but nature. Hey it's actually pretty important, despite the concrete and clowns so many are surrounded by.

In a way i don't consider people too big a part of reality, they are fragments of the movement or motion of it but they don't in any way define it.

There is all sorts of life to admire, life that won't get you down if that is the problem. Animals are fascinating so are plants and the sky and water and the dirt, fire.

Sounds a bit primal maybe but that stuff feels good to touch base with. People, integral, but too much is too much. Fake people, wow, that i just don't get it.(although your description does take it pretty far)

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That is a good description of it.

In a way what you are describing is still the inward focus of an individual though, and i am counting situations they are allowing them selves to be in; Jobs, marriages, crappy towns etc. Those are all choices for adults.

And as you know the inward focus is a magnet for particles of non reality, in the bad way.

What i am trying to get at a bit more is a focus on the external instead, real reality, the non people world, i know i keep mentioning nature, but
nature
. Hey it's actually pretty important, despite the concrete and clowns so many are surrounded by.

In a way i don't consider people too big a part of reality, they are fragments of the movement or motion of it but they don't in any way define it.

There is all sorts of life to admire, life that won't get you down if that is the problem. Animals are fascinating so are plants and the sky and water and the dirt, fire.

Sounds a bit primal maybe but that stuff feels good to touch base with. People, integral, but too much is too much. Fake people, wow, that i just don't get it.(although your description does take it pretty far)

 

 

If you have a bent for poetry, the attitude you describe above is worked up in an amazing manner by the German poet Rilke. He found huge relief and release in solitude, and one entire phase of his poetic career was inspired by turning away for a while from introspection and learning how to truly "see" the natural world and write about it.

 

But humans are fundamentally social creatures, and in the long run, family and friends, lovers and community are primal for us. Solitude and "nature" are like a vacation - people are home and reality for us, for better or worse.

 

nat whilk ii

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So many good things are always happening in reality and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the imaginations of those who try to ignore reality.

 

 

 

So many good things are always happening in the imagination and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the realities of those who try to ignore imagination.

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Honestly, I have no clue what reality is. I've read some philosophy and some religion. I walk for exercise (almost 2 hours 3 times a week) and ponder this question regularly on my treks. This is not an attempt to be funny, or cute, or stir up anything..... I just have no clue.

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So many good things are always happening in the
imagination
and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the
realities
of those who try to ignore
imagination
.

 

HAHA!! So true. :lol::thu: Kind of a better way to say what I was trying to say, except I've had the work week from hell and my brain ain't workin' too good.

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And as you know the inward focus is a magnet for particles of non reality, in the bad way.

 

 

Why in the bad way?

 

 

What i am trying to get at a bit more is a focus on the external instead, real reality, the non people world, i know i keep mentioning nature, but
nature
. Hey it's actually pretty important, despite the concrete and clowns so many are surrounded by.

 

 

Hey, I'm right with you there. Disconnection from natural processes has probably not been good for most people. Personally I too have a major need to connect with "nature" regularly - through gardening, hiking and camping, etc. And there is so much beauty to be had there. But there are a lot of people who don't have the opportunity and have not been raised with the awareness of nature. It just doesn't register on them. A lot of people are afraid of it or just bored with it. That may or may not mean their lives are empty or devoid of reality, though. There is plenty of reality to be found in cities.

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I think there has been plenty imaginative things that have proven to be prophetic as there are wishful thinking BS.

It may be because the imaginative things were things people really wanted to have. Examples are loaded in SiFi movies.

Who would think the flip communicators in Star Trek would be out flip cellphones today and in fact have become hand held computers.

 

Theres just as much BS though. The world didnt get knocked off its axsis and head to an ice age or burn up in the sun for example.

All the wishful thinking in the world with all the global warming enthusiests havent made that one occur yet.

 

I am a believer in what man believes can come to pass to some extent. Everything man made was thought to exist before it was invented.

There are plenty more that have not.

 

You really need to separate the Physical realities from mental/emotional elements though.

What most consider to be fantasy is often simple substitution.

Take believeable events either historic or current, realistic themes, morals, emotions, and charecters pitted in the oldest theme of all, good vs evil

and you got the makings of best sellers and hit movies.

 

A movie like Independance day or Star Wars are perfect examples.

Subsitiute current world politcs and use imaginary charectures often dressed up to be aliens, have a hero, a heroin, and bad guys

and you got the makings of something appealing to all.

 

Each will see themselves in the charectures to some extent and gather from it what appeals to them.

Problem is when people start wanting to "be" those charectures or believe those things are so real that they begin to impose them in their daily life is where things

get bent. Thinking your boss is an alien and wanting to destroy the world, thinking your house if bugged, 2012 is the end of the world, The earth is getting warmer

are all things where people have let fantasy influence their reality because the facts are truely boaring to them and to face the facts is disturbing.

 

They want see and believe things that dont exist because their life is so dam boaring they cant live with themselves and their own thoughts unless constantly distracted.

After all, most peoples lives are super boaring, totally ununique and nothing like you would see in a book or movie.

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A side thought: every song you ever heard existed in someone's imagination before it existed in reality. Every product you ever used, every car you ever drove, every plane that ever transported you, was an imaginary element in someone's brain at one point. I think that imagination is rather important, and I think more of it should be encouraged.

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If we're talking just about the negative things of the imagination, I think this is a good explanation.


But there's another aspect: the imagination is a powerful force in people.

 

Of course! I assumed (maybe wrongly, which would be sad on a forum for musicians) that that goes without saying. The OP seems to be focused specifically on the negative aspects of imagination - fantasies or imagined perceptions that serve to deny reality or keep a person from appreciating it or fully living in it. And like I said, these fantasies don't usually come from a person's own imagination or authentic self - they are borrowed or foisted on them by someone else.

 

That's completely different from creative fantasy or active imagination. I mean, if people don't already know how important that is to a human being, we're pretty much doomed. :lol:

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Theres just as much BS though. The world didnt get knocked off its axsis and head to an ice age or burn up in the sun for example.

All the wishful thinking in the world with all the global warming enthusiests havent made that one occur yet.

 

Wishful thinking? Global warming "enthusiasts?" :facepalm:

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Wishful thinking? Global warming "enthusiasts?"
:facepalm:

 

Sure. That stuff dates back to the cold war propaganda sci fi movies of the 1950s and 60s.

Cool movies in their time but noone took them seriously. Most have likely forgotten they were even made.

 

Heres the main one for global warming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Caught_Fire

Heres the other for global cooling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midnight_Sun

 

All that stuff was based in Sci Fi and many still continue to try and scare other with it.

Its the boogie man that the medicine man dreams up to put fear into people and

maintain control over them.

 

Back when I was growing up in the 60s there was real threats of nuclear war.

Noone knew what the bomb was or could do, and the sci fi movies were a combination

of war propaganda, entertainment, and media control over truely scared population.

If people could be convinced the reality of nukes were the same as sci fi where everything

came out OK at the end, then it gave people relief from reality.

(The fear factor still makes major money for polititions and modern movie makers)

 

The real threat of nukes was the basis of so much music and movies growing up.

They've pretty much switched to bad guys in the past 10~20 years I'd say.

The propaganda scare tactics are still at work convincing many though. They've gotten much

smarter at it of course, and those who believe, are blind to the money making machine in back of it.

I surely dont get it though. There are no numbers of actual temperatures available to the public to view.

 

I'd say a good 99.9% of the people who believe in that bunk are victums of the media and dont even know it yet.

I dont blame them though. There were plenty of theories I believed to be true growing up I later found out to be

complete BS over the years. Theres still plenty of others may be truths I leave an open mind on because theres

are no facts to proove them either way.

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A side thought: every song you ever heard existed in someone's imagination before it existed in reality. Every product you ever used, every car you ever drove, every plane that ever transported you, was an imaginary element in someone's brain at one point. I think that imagination is rather important, and I think more of it should be encouraged.

 

 

Exactly. It's not even a side thought. To me, it's the whole deal. And not some new age manifesting silliness, but pragmatic design. It starts in the imagination. It continues and gets refined there too.

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So many good things are always happening in reality and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the imaginations of those who try to ignore reality.


Yet as in another thread it is mentioned how people are prone to being drawn to fake people, fake reality, fake lives.


Is it because that is easier? Is it because we fail to see the good things in reality?

Whats the deal?


Discuss?

 

 

I think, generally, reality is severely overrated...

 

On the other hand, if you're in a fantasyland, that basically is your reality, isn't it? I mean, what you perceive is what you know. And if it gets bent beyond recognition on it's way through your own personal doors of perception, who's to say it isn't valid?

 

There are some limits, I guess... If you perceive that you are being chased by a group of 14 foot hungry carpenter ants, you will doubtless have some troubles coping with the world in which reality is defined by consensus... (this happened to me once, when I was 14 and ate way too much head candy at one time. I got over it though)

 

One last item, which I perceive as a truth as regards the power of thought and the destructive capacity of buying into delusions vs. the constructive capacity of abandoning the desire for control of your perceptions:

 

Watch Your Thoughts

in Buddhism/Zen, Poem and eSangha.

 

Watch your thoughts: They become your words.

Watch your words: They become your actions.

Watch your actions: They become your habits.

Watch your habits: They become your character.

Watch your character: It becomes your destiny.

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So many good things are always happening in the
imagination
and simultaneously so many silly unnecessary negative ones in the
realities
of those who try to ignore
imagination
.

 

 

If i qualified my point by saying reality is that which is real minus mans influence would you still hold to this view?

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Honestly, I have no clue what reality is. I've read some philosophy and some religion. I walk for exercise (almost 2 hours 3 times a week) and ponder this question regularly on my treks. This is not an attempt to be funny, or cute, or stir up anything..... I just have no clue.

 

 

If i qualified my point by saying reality is that which is real in nature minus mans influence would you still be confused?

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I think there has been plenty imaginative things that have proven to be prophetic as there are wishful thinking BS.

It may be because the imaginative things were things people really wanted to have. Examples are loaded in SiFi movies.

Who would think the flip communicators in Star Trek would be out flip cellphones today and in fact have become hand held computers.


Theres just as much BS though. The world didnt get knocked off its axsis and head to an ice age or burn up in the sun for example.

All the wishful thinking in the world with all the global warming enthusiests havent made that one occur yet.


I am a believer in what man believes can come to pass to some extent. Everything man made was thought to exist before it was invented.

There are plenty more that have not.


You really need to separate the Physical realities from mental/emotional elements though.

What most consider to be fantasy is often simple substitution.

Take believeable events either historic or current, realistic themes, morals, emotions, and charecters pitted in the oldest theme of all, good vs evil

and you got the makings of best sellers and hit movies.


A movie like Independance day or Star Wars are perfect examples.

Subsitiute current world politcs and use imaginary charectures often dressed up to be aliens, have a hero, a heroin, and bad guys

and you got the makings of something appealing to all.


Each will see themselves in the charectures to some extent and gather from it what appeals to them.

Problem is when people start wanting to "be" those charectures or believe those things are so real that they begin to impose them in their daily life is where things

get bent. Thinking your boss is an alien and wanting to destroy the world, thinking your house if bugged, 2012 is the end of the world, The earth is getting warmer

are all things where people have let fantasy influence their reality because the facts are truely boaring to them and to face the facts is disturbing.


They want see and believe things that dont exist because their life is so dam boaring they cant live with themselves and their own thoughts unless constantly distracted.

After all, most peoples lives are super boaring, totally ununique and nothing like you would see in a book or movie.

 

 

This focuses on a good point, that we try to focus our definition of reality on our interactions with other people, when really that is only a small part of true reality.

Also, it's degree is an option, to a large extent, a choice.

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A side thought: every song you ever heard existed in someone's imagination before it existed in reality. Every product you ever used, every car you ever drove, every plane that ever transported you, was an imaginary element in someone's brain at one point. I think that imagination is rather important, and I think more of it should be encouraged.

 

 

You think so? i see your point as an artist, but in the day to day?

There is a time and place for this stuff, we as a society are slowing becoming submerged in it to our detriment.

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If we're talking just about the negative things of the imagination, I think this is a good explanation.


But there's another aspect: the imagination is a powerful force in people. A negative person would naturally have a negative imagination, and vice versa. You positive people surely have silly, positive things in your imagination, but since they're positive you don't think of it in the same way. But negative or positive, they're all silly imaginations.




If you don't mind I'm going to appropriate this for a song title. 8)

 

 

I don't even want royalties.

I'm leaning more towards the whole "society blind and obedient due to delusion and preoccupation" than the 'self destructive depression' thing.

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Reality is a very complex thing nowadays. If you own a TV set and watch it often, you are willingly partaking in a very crafty, manipulated reality.... It's an unreality, but we take it for granted that it's showing us important things for us to know. If you go without TV, as I have for over four years, you get a frightening realization at just how most Americans' minds and realities are carefully shaped and honed by television, movies and TV commercials.

 

We joke that "there's only the Matrix, and you can't see it because you're participating in it." Well, when it comes to American media, this is largely true.

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