The Stories We Make Up

What is reality? Most of us assume reality is what our senses tell us it is. Reality is empirical, it is determined by experience, touch, smell, sight, sound. Or is it? There is more to reality than matter. At least I think so.

The dictionary definition is not altogether helpful, stating “reality” is just the state or quality of being “real.” Digging deeper into the meaning of “real” we run across this:

• True; not merely ostensible, nominal, or apparent.

• Existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary, ideal, or fictitious.

• Being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary.

I don’t think this helps much, except maybe the last bullet point. Objective existence is close, not imaginary is closer to meeting the needs of this article. In all honesty, I don’t think many people use the term correctly.

These days most people seem to equate reality with facts and truths. Primarily a materialist view of the universe, i.e. a toad sitting on a mushroom can be real if we see it, or are told about it from a reliable source. A fairy sitting on a mushroom is not real, whether we see it or not, and if someone, reliable or not, tells us about it, we still draw the conclusion it is not real (I think fairies are real, but that’s another story). Or, more correlated to the context of this article, some people would say what Biden says is real, what Trump says is not real, or, what Fauci says about the vaccines for Covid is real, what McCollough says about the vaccines is not real. Get the picture?

It is true, I must say, that people do like to use statements like the above. They may understand that it is confusing and not necessarily using the right words…maybe they should use “true” instead of “real,” but altogether it is about the same. Truth is real, false is not real. Any arguments there? Can you have a false thing be real? Actually you can. At least to someone who has a different story about something—someone who does not think the thing one person thinks is false, is actually false. To make an example that is purely subjective just to make a point, one person loves the taste of oranges, and another hates the taste of oranges. To the person who likes oranges, the phrase “oranges taste great” is true, and thus it is real that oranges taste great. To the other person, oranges taste like crap, but that is real too, to them. So which statement is false? Which statement is not describing reality?

We talk all of the time in psychology about “subjective reality” and “objective reality.” Generally, objective reality is a reality that is consensual (but there are problems with this too). Subjective reality is believed by some to be real, and by others not to be real. The orange example is simplistic; I am sure you can think of others that might not be as simple.

The difference between objective reality and subjective reality is difficult to see at times. In fact, I would venture to say that most things in our lives we believe are real is a subjective belief, at least a lot of them. Anything that we do not actually experience has the possibility of being subjective. There are some who would argue that everything we experience is subjective, i.e. we create our own reality. But lets not open that can of worms.

The other thing important to understand is that we cannot place anything our senses pick up, either a material “thing,” or even an idea or concept without there being a story about it. We cannot understand what even a coffee cup is without a story about a coffee cup, either a story we have been told, or one we make up. Think of people who suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s. These people lose touch with the stories, they no longer recognize things as having meaning, or memories having meaning, or even people having meaning. They maintain some fragment of a story, but much of the detail is lost. Eventually they don’t even recognize the story of hunger and food and thus stop eating. They certainly lose touch with the story about themselves.

Think about this for a minute, it may be difficult to grok. This is obvious in most situations. Someone tells us a story about a friend who has a cold and can’t make it to lunch. Do we believe it? We do unless we have other reasons not to. News sources are of course places to read or listen to “news stories.” Why do we believe what we read or hear?—primarily because we trust the source. Some of us are gullible, and will believe nearly everything we read or hear. We seem to be experiencing a pandemic of gullibility these days. But mostly we suffer from trust issues. People used to have moral standards, and would refrain from lying or fabricating false stories they passed on as fact based on their own moral standards: “I am not a liar,” they would say, “it is not in my character to lie.” Now, not so much, especially where it matters the most, the media being one where it matters most.

I have had several young people (usually young men) in my psychotherapy practice who have told me, with no reservations, “If I could get away with it I would do it.” This usually applied to unsavory scruples: stealing, lying, hurting people, cheating on partners…even murder if it served a purpose and benefited them. I have to admit this astounds me, but it seems to be out there. Whether it is common or not, I do not know.

So what do we do with these “unreal stories” about “reality”? Well, first of all, we have to understand they are just “stories” and since everything has to have a story behind it in order to comprehend its place in reality, we have to be really careful about the veracity of any particular story. We can’t just take the story for granted. If we make the story up ourselves based on our empirical knowledge, then we can be relatively certain of its accuracy (unless we’ve been snorting something). However, with maybe about 90% of what we entertain as information, we must be certain that the source is trustworthy.

The problem with our current culture is that there is almost nothing in the mainstream that is trustworthy. This is where the catch is, because most people do not believe this. It does seem like this is a contemporary problem. People have in the past been typically wary of any information they did not obtain first hand. They analyzed what they found in newspapers, or what they heard out of people’s mouths, with a critical eye. This was easier to do when information was not as dense as it is now, and when people had a general idea how the world that mattered to them functioned. It is all way too complex now. We depend way too much on other people’s expertise and know how. And again, back in the day people had morals, and you could be relatively assured most people of character and position did not knowingly lie to you. Not anymore.

Be conscious. Be aware. Connect the dots yourself. Be mindful of conflicts of interest, biases, what a person or entity (like Big Pharma) has to gain from making up certain stories. What could be left out of a story that would change the essence of its meaning? Look for and find the story in question presented from other sources. And above all, use your common sense and gut feeling about the authenticity of anything you read, hear, or see. First and foremost, trust yourself.

---

If you would like to support my efforts to write articles that you enjoy, but would rather not at this time commit to a yearly or monthly subscription. Please buy me a cup of coffee! The gesture would be greatly appreciated!!