Our Surface Reality

Back in 2012, I posted a blog entry with the title, Hang In There!  While perhaps prescient concerning the future, things haven't gotten much better; thankfully, we are still here in 2016, and I don't even remember, literally, any of what was taking place around then!  Wait, it's all coming back to me! 

Unfortunately, on the war front, we are still experiencing the reverberations from that time, much of it harder to wrap my/our minds around.  Back then, I wrote that, "the only constant in life is change," then I was inclined to say that, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  Now I think everything is going to change!

It has been said that we humans, including myself, are creatures of habit; we don't like change.  So, tough!  I guess.  Personally, I am trying to maintain as positive an attitude as possible, trying to stay out of negative thinking.

While, I suppose, most of we humans would prefer to arrange our lives so that there are no surprises, life's little and big surprises are usually what spices up our lives by introducing change. Whether we want it or not.  Back, at the turn of the century, I expected major changes. Those major changes still have to yet appear in the surface reality in which we live, yet.  They are, however, real.

Just what is surface reality, anyway?  It seems to boil down to what each of us believes to be true--what we were taught in our history and science books, what is believed to be humanly possible.  What will make having surface reality change hard is each of our Belief Systems.  We want to keep our Belief Systems in tact. We want to hold on to the idea that we live in a predictable and stable world. (If the last years haven't caused any doubts about that, perhaps this year or next will do it.) My advice is to begin to do some, "what if, then what" thinking about our lives.

In this blog, I have encouraged the reader to examine their beliefs, and to take on an attitude that, instead of being facts, to change them to a status of, "as if true." An interview I saw on the Internet, corresponding to my advice, was to assign what one believes to a number on a scale of 0 to 10, with  false being maybe a 0, and, "it has happened", a 10.  (Keep in mind that, a non-belief in something, is also a belief.)

An example given of adopting such a system was a belief that, "my wife/husband loves me." If you believe that at a 10, or totally, you will be totally devastated if she/he asks you for a divorce. (I think that is good advice, considering that, now, many marriages do not last even a decade.)  If you had held that belief at a 7, 8, or 9, you might not be so totally wasted by being asked for a divorce.  (Also, it would, hopefully, tend to keep one from taking a wife/husband for granted.)  This comes under the heading of: "Assume nothing!" in my philosophy of life.

A belief at the other end of the scale, might be a non-belief in God.  As to that belief, in science recently there has been talk of a "God Particle".  In that regard, I read a very interesting book recently making a case for the universe being conscious. (Is that a disturbing thought, or not?  For me, not.)

As almost all humans rely on their Belief Systems, which are usually established about the time they complete what is called their, "education" to get them through their days.  Unfortunately, they are not going to help anyone deal with the upcoming reality, except through the tried-and-true reflex of denial, (as they say, "not a river in Egypt").

As to that upcoming reality.  Most have some knowledge about our modern GMO, frankenfoods, and non-prescription, "recreation," drugs, as well as disturbing information such as in the Wikileaks, and the development of robotics, but generally have heard little, except denials, about what is known about anything, "controversial."

Those who want to learn some of what's really been going on in this world,  have recently been provided with a trove of (former) secrets, now known as, "Wikileaks," courtesy of Edward Snowden.  Now, just this week, a mass of, "millions of files," have been released naming people who have squirreled away vast amounts of money in offshore accounts called the Panama papers.  It has been called the biggest such release yet, and, which has already led to the resignations of Iceland's Prime Minister.  And, apparently, is being banned from the public in China and Russia.

Take the subject of robots, something that used to be a topic for Science Fiction; now they are a growing reality; or Artificial Intelligence, or other various,"Science Fiction" ideas becoming reality.

Are you mentally prepared to absorb such things as a new reality.  I, personally, am very disturbed, by nanotechnology.  Nanotechnology ("nanotech") is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale.  There has been so much new development in nanotech, it has been reported that those working in this field do not bother to patent anything, developments are growing so fast.  For most people all this flows under what's in awareness--the radar of our ordinary reality.

What I am suggesting in this blog, is to try to be prepared for the unexpected, as all the indicators I have seen/read/heard-about strongly suggest that is what is in our near future, and not science fiction.

With that, I end today's blog.

Shirley Gallup