The Beautiful Illusion of Curiosity.

As humans, our realities are relatively open to individual interpretation. Everyone experiences life as something different, something unique; however, between these contrasts, there are overarching principles upon which we construct these realities. These principles allow people to communicate and empathize. Without them, we would have a crisis of reality anarchy. The worlds we live in would be so subjective that it would become difficult and rare for them to crossover.

We build our realities on a foundation of a few basic truths— everything we do is done within a scaffolding of these things we accept as veritable, pure truths that are unquestionably built into our realities, preventing against this reality anarchy. 

For example, we spend every moment of our lives respecting and abiding by Newton’s laws of physics— laws that we accept religiously, despite their extraordinarily recent discovery and publishing in relativity with the ensemble of human existence. When Newton published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, he was just a curious fellow, questioning why an apple fell. In looking for an answer to his question, he created the foundational ideas of how and why the world works as it does.

Isaac Newton discovered and wrote about laws that all humans must follow, without any room for bending the law. There are no consequences for his laws, because there is no way they can be broken. In our reality, the shared reality between humans, these laws are absolute truth.

Although these laws existed prior to Newton’s discovery, scientifically defining them for the world to understand consciously and logistically, not just subliminally, gave Newton a power over humankind that few individuals have ever weilded.

Over generations, Newton’s laws have become common knowledge. This idea that now is purely factual— a piece of the foundation of our reality, was just 350 years ago one curious man’s theory.

We rarely consider it, and I am not asserting that I believe this, but Newton could be wrong. Not in the sense that what he said was totally and completely incorrect, but there could be one minor detail he overlooked or one minor detail that he very slightly failed at explaining in its totality. Now I am no physicist, so my knowledge on this matter may be disregarded as what I am saying could possibly be completely false, but for the sake of the thought experiment, understand that this completely changes how us humans perceive reality. We who have been conditioned to believe what Newton proclaimed as absolute truth, could actually be wrong about the reality we live in as a result of an imperfection in Newton’s ideas.

Although we would all still objectively perceive the physical worlds around us in the same way, even if Newton was wrong in explaining how it works, our perceptions of the world around us would be altered to match that which we believe as true. If Newton was wrong, nobody would know it. All humans would still abide by his laws, because they are a part of the glue of absolute truth that binds human realities together into one cohesive world.

This is crazy, and it leads me to conclude that those who wonder how things work, why things are, and if things can get better are the ones who drive the human race forward, even if it is illusory progress. These curious individuals are the ones who invent solutions, find patterns in life, and provide the structure for what everyone else believes to be “truth,” which in turn shapes human reality differently for all of posterity.

The question I am left with after all of this pontificataion is whether or not there is an inherent problem with this “reality glue” or not. I don’t think it is my place to say, but I believe that it is good to be aware. Awareness leads to awakening and to truth, and truth, as we learned today, is the foundation upon which our reality is built. We are just left to wonder whether our truths are true.


The Grateful Podcast:

I have a podcast where I interview people much smarter and more qualified than me talking about how you can live a more purposeful life full of gratitude and ambition. 

I release episodes every Monday where I go over a lesson I’ve recently learned.

Every Wednesday and Saturday I release an episode with a very cool guest. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or find the video version on YouTube.

This week’s episodes:

Monday: The Illusion of Curiosity— the Shapers of Reality

I will dive into my thought process writing this newsletter and more examples of the illusion that is reality

Wednesday: How Your Parents’ Mental Health Impacts Yours with Deb Armstrong Branch

I talk to a specialist nurse from England for kids aged 0-6 on the importance of early childhood.

Saturday: How Gratitude Changed My Life and How it Could Change the World with David Lorimer

I am joined by David from today.iam.grateful (over 270k instagram followers) and we talk about the importance of gratitude in society.

Coaching:

If you’re ready to take action and need guidance, I’d love to help. 

I have limited space available so if you’re interested, book a free 15-minute call with me to discuss your dreams and how to start making them happen. 

You can shoot me an email at [email protected] where we can get scheduled.

Make this week rock. Thank you so much for reading this; I’ll see you next week.

With love,

Jack