posted on Jan, 11 2010 @ 05:51 AM
I've been here for a little while but I've already seen too many threads started by people who claim to know what's going on. Not only with their
lives, but with ours, the whole planet, the universe and some even say they know what god´s plan is. And the people reply saying stuff like "Yeah,
you're right!" or "Yeah, I know that's the truth!".It borders the absurd, or rather, transborders it...
Attempting to teach someone about reality is like sending a kiss through a messenger. In other words, even if you did know all there is to know about
reality - which you don't -, you wouldn't be able to describe it to someone else and through that description make that someone come to the same
level of understading as yours. Reality has to be experienced.
Pick the best romance novelist in the world and put him/her to write in the best of their hability the description of a first kiss and it wouldn't
come close to the experience of actually having your first kiss. What about having sex? Or giving birth to a child? A man can read all he wants about
giving birth and talk to a lot of women about that experience, but he will never truly understand the sensation, the pain, and whatever else comes
with that experience, before, during and after.
Ever had a great experience in your life and tried to describe it to your friends and family and while you were explaining you realised that words
were not enough to describe such experience? It's a bit frustrating.
One sunday morning I was watching a brazilian TV show focused on rural subjects. They took this poor farmer to see the ocean for the first time. Can
you imagine that? Someone who has never seen the sea? Never witnessed the strength of that never stopping huge body of water?
I have lived once in Japan, as a guest of the Tanaka family in Kanazawa. My host mother there, Mrs Tanaka, told me one day a story about a trip she
made to Africa with her daughter and while in Africa, her daughter, who was 14 by that time, asked her mom why there were people asking them for money
and food. Her mom then explained to her that those were poor people. Her daughter didn't know, till then, that poor people existed, or at least she
never witnessed it first hand. I found that incredible, since I am from Brazil and poverty is everywhere. Truth be told, all the time I spent in
kanazawa, I didn't find one homeless person, or poor people wandering the streets.
How much of our own world have you seen? How much of the knowledge we have discovered and developed do you understand? How many places have you
visited? Have you ever been to a desert, forest, tundra, ocean, river, mountain, etc?
What range of emotions have you experienced? Have you ever broken a bone in your body? Have you ever been punched in the face? have you even punched
someone in the face? Have you forgiven someone who caused you great pain? Have you caused great pain to someone and asked for forgiveness? Have you
loved? Have you been loved back?
I will give you an example form my own life. I am 32 years old and I have always been proud of the fact that I was able of self-analysing my life,
identify my mistakes and correct my actions. I have never smoked anything nor used any drugs, except drinking beer. And that's the only thing I drink
that has alcohol and rarely do so. Never felt the need or the will to use drugs, to smoke pot or cigarretes. Just never really crossed my mind. So I
didn't understand why people did it. I mean, I could rationalise it, but I have never FELT the feeling they must feel when they think about using
drugs. Another feeling that I never understood is depression. I used to be so arrogant about it that I would say that people who had depression
were weak and unstable.
Then, one day, for the first and only time in my life, I got depressed. I couldn't sleep, kept walking in circles in the living room, then I would
watch the sky from the balcony and ask for whatever it was up there to help me. For the first and only time in my life I thought about using drugs. I
thought about suicide. You name it. I hit rock bottom, or at least that was as low as I have ever hit in my whole life. It affected my family
drastically, almost splitting it in half. I eventually got over it.
Anyways, now I know. I have experienced it.
Now, if you describe it to me, I will know what you are talking about. Before that, I wouldn't know. I could rationalise it, but rationalising it
wouldn't come close to the understandment I now have, after experiencing depression.
Although we can try to describe to others what we have learned in our lives, the best we can do is offering clues, leads, so others could hunt
the truth on their own and experience it on their own.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying through my analogies that we should feel and experience everything, be it good or bad, so we understand
reality. Every analogy is flawed and so were the analogies I have presented here, but I did so to get the point across that the understanding of
reality is something dynamic, constantly changing throughout our daily lives, since life is also dynamic and we are constantly changing, evolving,
learning and experiencing more by the day. My experiences will never be the same as your experiences and maybe we are all unable to understand what
reality is in its fullness.
So, I wrote all that to leave one simple message. Beware of those telling you they know the truth. You can't and shouldn't depend on the words of
someone else to experience reality. There is no receipe or system that could be used in that way. The most people could do is offer you clues to
identify, by yourself, something you should look for yourself. Anyone offering you more than that, don't trust them.
Reality can't be explained. It has to be experienced.
[edit on 11-1-2010 by henriquefd]