What is "Reality?" What is "Realistic?" An Exploration...

I'll start by saying that I am NO expert on parenting... and I feel inclined to side with The Onion when it comes to evaluating parenting styles. That said, my own parents were more often detractors than cheerleaders.

One of the things I most often remember being told was that something was "Not Realistic" in the context of some idea or plan I had come up with. Granted, I tended to have a pretty lively imagination!

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But What IS "Reality?"

Meanwhile, I find myself contemplating this thing the entertainment industry has dubbed "Reality TV."

WTF, mate? The spectacle presented in those shows bears little resemblance to anything I've ever experienced as reality.

But what is reality?

As I look back, it seems most plausible to me that reality is something we each get to decide what is. And we each get to decide what is realistic, within the particular set of confines we have created. Doesn't mean we should expect people to agree with us!

I've met people for whom pretty much anything is within the realm of possibility. And sometimes they succeed at something I never would have thought realistically possible.

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Playing Percentages and Risk Aversion

In a fairly recent post, @aggroed made a tongue-in-cheek case for $80 Hive by the end of 2021. Most of us would say that such a prediction is just not realistic.

But according to whose reality are we deciding that? In a previous iteration Steem went from less than seven cents on March 10th, to $8.57 about ten months later, a 124-fold increase in less than a year. If Hive rose 124-fold from where it is right now, it would actually reach $93.00.

Is that realistic?

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My parents' "reality" in discouraging me from pretty much anything that wasn't "tried and true" and had a mile-long track record of reliability was a reflection of their reality of profound risk aversion.

Not unusual: for many people — particularly once they get past age 40-50 — the aversion to loss becomes stronger than the desire for gain.

Whose Reality IS it, Anyway?

When I was a teenager, my parents dispensing advice came from 50-somethings who had money in the bank, and whose primary concern was not to change the world but to maintain a comfortable status quo for the remainder of their lives.

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They merely — in a truly well-meaning way — projected their reality onto me.

So what's my point here?

We like to think we know what is "real" and what is not, but the reality is that "reality" is actually a pretty slippery beast, a large part of the time.

"Pretty Girl Syndrome" and Other Improbabilities

Some more snowflake-like people might find the following offensive, but it's also interesting.

One of the more interesting people I knew "way back when" was my friend Jules. Jules was one of those women who was clearly front and center when everything got handed out: Looks, character, intelligence, personality, morals. She was stunning, in every sense of the word... and as down-to-earth and just plain nice as you would ever find in someone.

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Jules was a very successful advertising sales executive, as well as a part-time aerobics instructor and a total psychology and sociology geek. It was around the latter our friendship was based.

In one of our very long and deep conversations about life and everything in it she posited that our (meaning the universal "our") sense of reality is substantially experiential.

She illustrated this by sharing her experience at a local hot night spot that always had a long line: She — "done up" to the nines for a night out — gets waved to the front of the line and ushered in without paying the $20 cover. Meanwhile, some "perfectly average guy" got to stand outside in line for two hours, only to be turned away because "We're not letting any more people in tonight."

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Skipping over all the gender/values bullshit, her POINT was that if you asked these two people the next day — knowing they were in the same place, at the same time, wanting the same thing — "how their night went," you would get two 100% authentic and true stories that might as well have taken place on two different planets.

What is "Reality?"

In the case of the two people above what might be regarded as "easy" to accomplish — or not — would be quite different.

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We Tend to Forget...

We often tend to forget that other people aren't necessarily "wired" the same as us. And that their experiences aren't the same as ours. And that the implications of our having the exact same experience isn't necessarily the same.

When I think back to my own parents as more detractors than cheerleaders, the bias I bring to situations — interpreted by me as "realistic" — is that most things will go down in flames. When I encounter someone who firmly believes they will always succeed, I see them as "unrealistic," even though their actual experience may well be that 95% of what they attempt turns out well!

As such, I struggle with the idea that "realistic" can even be globally attributed... it's a very individual thing!

Whether that is a realistic way of thinking... remains to be seen!

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!

How about YOU? How do YOU arrive at what you consider "realistic?" Do you think what's realistic tends to be largely subjective, and depends on the individual? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210918 23:46 PDT

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Do you think what's realistic tends to be largely subjective, and depends on the individual?

Oh! of course. Reality and what is "really" realistic always is gonna depend of each individual. There is no realistic doubt about that subjectivity. };)

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Realistic for me usually comes down evaluating what is the most likely outcome or what the majority percieve as reality. I often wish i was more courageous or bold and will things to happen against the odds. I recently got a new boss at work and in many ways his outlook and a bold vision for the future is very refreshing.

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Great and reflective post, thank you very much. Rarely read such a beautiful and warm-hearted version on this topic.

Reality is not a fixed state, I see it the same way. As in the example of the Crypto Course, it is created by desires, assumptions, beliefs and actions, is a process happening through influences.

I may confuse my fears and desires with seeing events occur that I causally associate with the fearful or desired events. Whereas causality is really an exceedingly difficult concept and I like to bring it into my conceptions of reality, if not force it in. Thus something becomes real that actually seemed hardly possible to unbelievable and the prophet fulfils his prophecy. If enough prophets predict the same thing, it seems like a miracle that it comes true, but then who is really surprised?

As soon as I take a headache pill, I change my sense of reality. I attribute my diminishing headache to the pill, but it could just as easily be that anything has happened as well, such as lying down or the air pressure dropping, or that I have undergone a change in metabolism due to some exciting news, or that I just firmly believed that my pain would go away due to the pill, and so on.

I think the example with the queue outside the club is very fitting when people compare their stories!

Right now, at this moment, my kitchen chair is in the process of passing away. The chair may or may not outlive me, but if one were to steal the chair's noun and say instead that the chair "chairs" and the apple tree "apples", one could also say that the earth " peoples". The innumerable events and the processes of varying duration that take place on both a small and a large scale elude a determinate definition of reality, and so for me only what I experience is real, since I cannot make a body swap with you, for example, in order to enter your skin and your head in order to make my experiences from there.

If you had entered your parents' skins as a young person, their speeches would have become immediately clear to you; all at once you would have become aware of their entire spectrum of experience, which cannot be put into words. Luckily the young can't slip into the old sacks, I can only say! :)

How much I as a human being am influenced by the many others in my sense of reality, I cannot say. But it always becomes clear when I withdraw from this influence for a significant time and intensity. How much the earth - if I consider this planet to be alive - influences me, I can't really say that either, but I suspect that the sun and the galaxy also have an influence (and beyond). For the earth, I am probably just like my human cells are for me as its large body: we cannot talk directly to each other, but nevertheless communication takes place. At least I am sure of that ;-)

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it seems most plausible to me that reality is something we each get to decide what is.

It sure is! If you can imagine it, you can do it, or at least get closer. So try! Like these people you describe:

When I encounter someone who firmly believes they will always succeed, I see them as "unrealistic," even though their actual experience may well be that 95% of what they attempt turns out well!

Most 50 somethings, even today, have the same values your 50 something parents had - keep the money coming in, the house standing, and your stuff up to snuff.

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