The human mind can understand value only in relative terms. How can we stop comparing our lives to those of others any way? And the insidious double effect of the stories we read/see: the more marvellous the fantasy world to drown yourself into for a few hours, the more limited and dull real life appears when you return to it again. While depressing tales can end up making you appreciate more the luck you've had.
Really. Who are these people who believe we could ever perceive some kind of absolute truth?
Today I got both. Marvellous tales of fantasy and depressing tales of real life. Not my own life, last week has been great. I was actually going to write about how I have so much to be thankful for etc, but then I thought I might as well indulge in watching a bit of fiction. Perhaps I would've been better off choosing something else. Does reality even stand a chance compared to all the wonders that the mind can conjure?
And yet such mythical tales, mystical moments need not be entirely illusory. I think for the first time since childhood I'm starting to understand the need to act the stories rather than simply read/watch/imagine them. Only it's not so much the acting as the experiencing. Just like when I was a child and played I was somebody else, what mattered was not so much an observable change in my behaviour as the shift inside to a different kind of personality through which to perceive the world. I think I'm a bit more aware of the relativity of reality again. Only strongly physical experiences like death, illness, pain - the very basic limitations of our nature - seem too strong to leave room for interpretation.
Maybe I've managed to set my feet on the ground solidly enough to allow for some fairy dust again now.
