We all have our unique reality.

We don’t have many facts…those are extremely rare. There are a lot of hypotheses and theories, but proving something beyond a doubt is pretty hard.

Our reality is unique. If reality was standardized, decisions would be simpler.

It is nice to believe we all see (or should see) the same thing, hear the same words, perceive the same world, but we know it’s not true. We don’t. It’s impossible.

The myriad of variables which make us who we are is what makes us and humanity complex.

As an individual, we try to interact with humanity’s ever increasing intricacies as our world expands and we interact with more and more unique ‘realities’.

Walt Whitman’s Noiseless Patient Spider suggests we are ‘ceaselessly musing’. We think, ‘seeking the spheres to connect them’.

Here is the catch…to me he suggests we seek connection despite our inability to fully understand each other’s reality.

For me, the isolation, the ‘vacant vast surrounding’, Whitman suggests is not a lack of physical company, it is a lack of mental and emotional company.

No one can understand our feelings, they are based on our reality, which is unique.

We can empathize, but we don’t fully understand.

We can’t walk in another person’s shoes, which is a good reason to trust their view of reality is as genuine as ours.

Even friends and intimate partners do not know each other’s intricate reality.

Nothing I write here will synchronize our realities. I will have mine and you will have yours.

If we truly own this concept, disputes become easier to resolve. I would recognize your right to your reality, and you would do the same for me.

People would be less judgmental and more accepting.

Ideal, but unrealistic. Whitman wouldn’t want me to glamorize the power of such an understanding.

But there is this assumption tied to the word reality. To the brain, reality is how things are, not as they are imagined. So if your reality is not my reality, then my brain assumes my reality is right and yours…well…it isn’t.

This is helpful to know, because, in general, society unifies under the dominant belief system, and those who fall outside this system, their reality is mistaken, wrong, immoral, insane and so on.

Thinking our reality is ‘right’, makes us think our job is to be correct, ethical, and lead others to the light.

This is my reality. I like to think we can always expand our reality; see it more clearly, without ever knowing reality as a fact. Complexity keeps life interesting.

Reality wants me to think I know what I am talking about, but who knows? Reality is clearly fickle.

So when the gecko says it has a ‘small’ brain, it’s not really about the size of my brain (though a gecko’s brain is pretty small) it is about my capacity to contemplate reality in a unified way.

In that sense, maybe all of our brains are a bit smaller than our reality wants us to believe.