Delusion vs. Reality: A Revision

While sifting through my unconscious phantasmagoria (you’d know what this meant if you were following me on twitter…http://www.twitter.com/stillz) trying to conjure up a relevant interpretation or lesson, the light bulb flickered on. Last night prior to my forty winks, I blogged about the association between delusion and reality (read it here: http://bit.ly/cWgXGe) ultimately concluding that our happiest times are when we are absolved from reality.

There’s a Psalms (30:5) that says “but joy cometh in the morning light.” When I opened my blinds this morning the light from an overcast sky filled the room with energy, with hope. Yet another another delusion. Why do we avoid reality as if it will cease to exist if we just close our eyes a little longer. A drunk tries to drown his sorrows as if the pain he’s harboring won’t exist in the morning. When Thomas Hobbes said that a man’s life is “nasty, brutish, and short,” I absolutely agree with him, yet that reality is what makes being alive genuinely amazing.

Reality excites us. It’s unpredictability leaves us on the edge of our seats everyday. The reason we work as hard as we do is because life is short and to accomplish our goals in such time requires a certain ingenuity. Because the world is nasty, we need passion in order to fight through life’s unabashed gauntlet of trials, tricks, and deceit. Ironically, what I love most about being alive is facing these trials, tricks, and deceptions and making it out alive. That’s true happiness. Living to 25 years old makes me happy. The reality of my three vehicle collisions and two totaled cars makes for one hell of a story. In high school, I fell asleep behind the wheel and drove into a 15-foot ditch, yet I’m still here. 7,000 people die each hour around the world, yet I’m still alive to talk about it. What makes me truly happy is that I have the opportunity to look into the eyes of this “nasty, brutish, short” life and punch it in the face. In the end, we all succumb to its power, but in the merited fight we find accomplishment, in which we find happiness.