Fact and belief. Law and perception.
Does everything happen for a reason, or do we attach a reason to everything? Maybe everything happens for exactly the reasons we attach to them. What about destiny? Is destiny objectively good or bad or are there simply events which happen to us whose nature (positive or negative) are based of our perspective?
I sit down in the passenger seat of my aunt’s car on a sunny day in Coventry and we speak on the power of perception. The power of interpretation. I tell her what does fact care about my perception. What does gravity care if I believe in it? What does death care if I acknowledge his inevitability? If an arrow fell from the sky and pierced my heart, I’d still die regardless of my belief in gravity or in death. So, of what use is my perception. Do the laws of the universe take my perception into account? Have they ever? Will they ever?
Fact is a language spoken by the universe and perception is our interpreter. The problem is our interpreter was never trained to translate facts. It was trained by our personal experiences and beliefs to serve our egos and keep harsh truths locked away. This is because humans are obsessed with cause and effect. Things don’t just happen. We’re always searching for explanations no matter how flawed they are (Seven hundred gods and each man swears to God his god is the right God). No matter how many gaps they leave. If they are self-serving to what we want reality to be, we accept them.
I remember being younger I was told a story on how a boy lost his sight and gave thanks to God. He gave thanks because the loss of his sight didn’t let him view sin anymore, God loved him so much he took his eyes. I remember leaving that story thinking of what an interesting perception that was. I think about that story and ask myself what the facts were. The fact was he couldn’t see any longer, the fact was a finite number of things. Perception, however, is individual and infinite. Blindness could have been given to three people. One would interpret it as a blessing, another a misery and the third a curse for his sins. Are they all wrong or are they all right?
I remember pops passing away and me giving thanks to God. In my most heart-breaking of moments all that could shield me from the cold clutches of reality were the perceptions I held. The perception of him being in a better place. The perception of life happening to me so I could be stronger. The fact though, was pops was gone. My perception was personal, my perception served to cushion the reality and while I sat down to delve deeper into my perception, I finally understood what the blind boy saw. My perception defined my reality. Pops did die, but pops died and I became stronger. I became stronger because I perceived his passing as that.
In our darkest moments perception is our only way of understanding the elusive ways of the universe and maybe our perception is wrong, but we’re human and that’s all we have. We tell ourselves that maybe the world is more beautiful without sight or maybe we’re happier without the presence of our loved ones. We let mundane happenings in our daily lives dictate some sense of being special in our hearts because the alternative is scarier. The alternative of realising that perhaps destiny is not some objectively good or bad situation the world has thrown to us. Destiny is just a happening and we are open to interpret it in any way we might like. Scary, isn’t it? Scary to be told “life just happens to you”. Scary to be told “there might be no light at the end of the tunnel, it could be an eternally dark one”. We’re not ready for that and who could be?
And so, we make up all these stories. We make up these stories to inspire and shield us from the scary nightmare that is reality. The reality of life just happening to us.
These justifications and explanations as much as they serve as a coping mechanism are insulting. The ways of God are cryptic. God in his infinite wisdom gave him blindness. God in his infinite wisdom showed me pain. What to do with that was left to him and me. To say I was dealt these cards for some certain reason is to undermine the complexity of the universe.
I’ve begun to look at life this way more and it’s been an interestingly powerful tool for me. Learning to look at things objectively, looking at things for what they are and maybe not as much for what I want them to be. Sometimes what I desperately need them to be. Life is not more beautiful without pops, and I miss him. pops didn’t die so I could become a warrior. Pops died and I chose to become a warrior. The boy lost his eyesight, and he chose to see the beauty in his predicament. Maybe perception and reality are just two sides of the same coin. Different but true in some way. Fact and belief. Law and perception.
