Alright, I have had enough of people lecturing me to get back to 'reality' and now I am ready to dissect the concept of reality and see what comes up. Feel free to contribute a comment and your own point of view, even if you think I am crazy .
So, reality? What is reality? Things as they are, absolutely as they are, free of perception isn't it? That's how I understand it, I didn't look it up, not yet anyway.
But the question is do you really know how things really are? Let's dig deeper. :P *rubs hands with glee*
Suppose you have a headache, you take a tablet. Now, we all know, most of us anyway, that that tablet doesn't do much in the way of curing the headache, it just anesthetizes (whoa that's a tricky word) the area where the pain is and you don't feel the pain. The cause is there, the pain is also there, but now you don't feel the pain. Which one is reality - pain or no pain? You are not feeling the pain so that can't be a reality for you, and yet you know very well that it's there since the tablet just induced local anaesthesia and nothing more so painlessness is not a real reality! :)
Some people don't take a tablet for headaches just for that reason. To them, I'll ask what about dental surgery? Would you go under the gas or not? What about molar extraction? If you persist, I will persist too, what about heart bypass? What about amputation? Can anyone go under any kind of pain without the help of drugs? No.
My point? You relax your hold on reality for a certain period in order to escape the pain and torture of reality.
Have you seen the movie "Shallow Hal"? This guy, the hero, after a post-hypnotic suggestion, sees all girls as beautiful because of their inner beauty and when his friend wakes him up he is ready to kill him. Why? He explains, "If I like a girl and you don't, would it matter to me, if you think she's not beautiful. I saw a knock-out I don't care what anyone else sees?" Does he sound like he wants reality?
This brings me to my next point, what about love? When people are in love, esp. when they are falling in love, they see things differently. Not only they don't see each other's faults but also the world seems like a perfect place to them. I am not a cynic, not any more, but still I'd admit that the world is far from perfect. Yet, to a couple in love it would seem like paradise itself.
I have been in love, or infatuation or whatever you want to call it, and then out of it. And when I was out of it, I thought "Man! that was a fool's paradise I lived in!" and then soon I realized that the fool's paradise was a very pleasant way of living rather than the "smart" awakened life.
Let me quote from Heinlein, from his book "Revolt in 2100" that I finished today, his young hero says, "Call it what you like and laugh at us, but at that moment we were engulfed in that dear madness more precious than rubies and fine gold, more to be desired than sanity. If you have never experienced it and do not know what I am talking about, I am sorry for you."
Madness that's more to be desired than sanity, eh? Yes, the lad is right, only those who have loved would know what it means. Especially the ones who have loved and lost! For my money, if I had a wish I would ask to be eternally in love, deeply, madly in love and never to be brought back to reality!!
erhm...*shakes head and comes out of the dreamy stare into space*
Other than all that, how are you sure that this dull, work-home-kids-drive routine is reality? Have you seen Matrix? Computers have created a virtual reality that they feed into the minds of humans. Ok, Matrix is science-fiction what about God? All religions talk about God having created the world and ruling it. According to Hinduism God uses his assistant the most-treacherous female 'Maya' to run the world, and,
"Maya maha thagini ham jaani", Maya in itself means mystery and confusion, creating an illusion. So her illusion is your reality?
I can still see people in the crowd shaking their heads (don't mind me, I am envisioning myself on a high stage, discoursing to a great crowd :D )
Any one who did anything in this world, anything worthwhile, anything that made you know their names even though you don't live in the same street, did so by ignoring reality to some point.
Ah, puzzled? Let me explain.
This German doctor, I keep forgetting his name, yes Viktor Frankl, he survived and escaped Hitler's concentration camp, a place where a person could lose their life, their dignity and their mind. He not only kept his sanity, but he helped others, escaped when he got a chance and finally made a difference in the world with his work. He had a vision, all the time he was undergoing the torturous, inhuman treatment in the camps he always focused on an image of a better life, a vision of liberty, equality and a life of dignity. And at one point, he was able to swap his realities. Could he do that if he had just lived in the reality?
Then look at other figures, Euclid, Edison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Mother Theresa, Lal Bahadur Shastri...each and everyone of them had a dream, a vision, a better place to dwell on than reality.
Shaheed Bhagat Singh had a dream in his mind, the dream of an Independent India for which he gave up his 'reality', his safe and secure life as the beloved son of loving parents, and risked his life and ultimately died for that dream.
To conclude. I can't say that reality is something to be ignored. But reality is not everything. If you want to achieve more than what is real for you now, you have to focus on things that are not real, strive for them, work for them and make them the new reality.
I think I can best conclude with these 2 lines from Allama Iqbal,
"Isi roz-o-shab meiN ulajh kar na reh ja,
Zameen aur bhii aasmaaN aur bhii haiN."
(Don't be confined to this day and night,
there are other Earths there are other skies.)
[From his famous ghazal - Sitaron se aage jahaN aur bhii haiN, abhi ishq ke imtahaaN aur bhii haiiN.]
