Today I was walking home from EDM and I was thinking about the difference between our perceptions and reality. Here's an exercise in understanding what I mean: Next time you're outside, look at the trees and the grass and the sky and imagine that the sky is plain white (with no shading... like paper), and that everything green is red. For me it was a little bit difficult at first, but after a short time focusing I was able to recreate a world around me with vibrant and strange colors -- if only for a tiny instant. Now, as soon as you have successfully imagined it, consider the feeling. For me, I seemed almost to stop perceiving reality for just an instant, just long enough for me to see what I was imagining, but the whole time I knew that reality was there. Kindof like the way we forget that reality exists during a daydream or even more-so a dream -- except when you imagine something intentionally you never actually forget where you are.

So it's the difference between the feeling of seeing only what you see and seeing what you imagine. If you've felt the feeling I'm trying to portray, then you have seen the wall between reality and nonreality. To breach the wall would be to focus on your imagining until you believe it is real -- to forcefully reject your inclinations as they come to you. Is that the road to insanity? I've considered it before, as thinking experiment; like, imagining something absurd and telling yourself it's real, and not just trying to believe it but constructing a barrier to keep reality out. Would practicing intense imagination like that be a unhealthy? Would it be destructive? Or would it be an exercise in creativity and control of your own mind?

--Which is another topic. Nobody really controls what they think about, do they?.

Today in chapel I wasn't paying attention, but I was thinking about my past and my present and my future, and then suddenly the bass struck and the cymbals clashed and everyone seemed to start yelling "oh how he loves us" all at once. It was kindof like getting slapped in the face. I couldn't ignore the words anymore and sang along instead.

"You know, since you said you'd definitely be there..."