Is Reality Illusional?

February 15, 2018 Thursday

So I’m here sitting in Paris Baguette on Hostetter Road, in San Jose, California. Just placed a bookmark in between two pages of a book I was semi-diving into. Einstein said, “Time is an illusion.” It’s flexible, nonlinear, and the whole twenty-four hours in a day thing is a giant hoax (Jen Sincero). Immediately, Timothy Ferris’ 4-hour workweek ideology crossed my mind and I was overwhelmed by confronting a new reality my eyes were perceiving and mind absorbing and adjusting.

First and foremost, is time really an illusion? Or is it just subjectively illusional? I understand that time is organized, potentialized, used (wasted or multiplied), and enjoyed (or the opposite) differently by individuals. In other words, if activities measured in quantity, quality, significance, and long-term impact and level of enjoyment achieved in 24 hours were converted into monetary assets, some peeps are 1,000,000 shares of Google stocks wealthier than others. But after all, there are ONLY 24 hours in a day—no more, no less, right? Then how does that make time an illusion? I mean, the property of time, the character of time, an illusion? Or did Einstein mean that time is an illusion in the mind of the perceiver? Whether or not I’m over thinking about this single statement or, there is some magical truth to “Time” worth digging into and comprehending, it would be so cool if time itself really is an illusion. This would make Planet Earth we live in a much more interesting playground!

So the next question is, what else here is an illusion? Wealth is an illusion, I propose. The more I learn about stocks and investment, the clearer it comes to me that many of an individual’s investments aren’t so liquid—easily transferrable to cash that you can use to purchase a house next month. Financial assets held in the stock markets, in savings accounts, and other platforms that this economics major undergraduate isn’t acknowledgeable in are merely numbers that convert into a sense of peace and dignity, but with little instant purchasing power. And swinging off the topic for a bit, the idea of savings amuses me. We work to save for a future we imagine. Put it another way, when you earn something, you hold it off until later, and later, and later, and you’re off to see my Father, leaving your earthly assets redirected to someone you love who might save them for their offspring to go to college in order to get a job to create a strong savings. Anyway, I believe wealth is an illusion because we think about money too economically, relative to where our relationship with money is depending on the future we see. For example, when I was working full time in college, I was “wealthy”. I could afford to live a luxurious lifestyle if I willed, which I didn’t. But two weeks later, when I quit both jobs to redefine my purpose and redirect my path, thus I was “poor”. I had to be extremely considerate of the $2.50 tea I purchased to sit at Paris Baguette for 10 hours today. So was I really wealthy when I had that additional $3000 per month just because I could afford to eat out every day? The definition of wealth was defined in prospective terms, which are all an imaginary optimism.

Take this, your life is an illusion because once you die, you don’t exist anymore. None of “you” and your past efforts grow another tree or blow another breeze on this Planet Earth, unless you are Martin Luther King, Jr. or Eleanor Roosevelt whose unbeatable impact continues to change lives today. All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, won’t you agree? When I say, your life is an illusion, life incorporates your feelings, your thoughts, your health, your wealth, your purpose, and so on. Aren’t all of these constructed by your brain or a higher divine intervention? You are nothing without Someone assigning you an identity that you hold onto for the rest of your life. Illusion is subjective, sometimes collectively subjective. But the whole purpose of this article is to convince you think: if every visible existence is an illusion, how about make your illusion a hopeful, loving, purposeful, and enjoyable one?

PS: I believe the invisible is real, and the visible is for the fools.