by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I find myself — AGAIN — becoming rather obsessed with the nature of “what is real.” There seems to me a number of elements to reality. One of them is perception, which can be described by this parable: a man crashes a high end party and the host, rather than confront the man, whispers in his ear, “It’s so nice to see someone of your status at the party.”
This is a way of talking to the party crasher without confronting him and potentially causing a scene. I really like this parable because it really strikes at the very heart of what is “real.” Relative to everyone else at the party, they don’t even notice that the party crasher is there at all.
So, in a sense, relative to them, the party crasher doesn’t “exist,” he’s not “real.”
Anyway, I continue to dwell on the nature of reality and struggle with how one knows something is “real.” I like to think the “knock test” works — where you touch something nearby to prove that what’s going on is “real,” but I’ve grown to doubt how useful such behavior really is.
