Chris Bridge = Amazing

What makes us who we are? Our life experiences? Or is our personalities marked out from birth? Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions and then going on and on about them? The question I want to address and rant about today is “Are we truly in reality, or is this world nothing but an illusion to suit us?”

I remember being in elementary school and collecting the ‘Animorph’ book series where humans copied the DNA of animals and transformed into them in order to combat an alien race that enslaved the human race. I think this was the first time I ever began wondering ‘Just where the hell am I?” I remember reading that the aliens in the book needed to feed every 3 days and they went to a mysterious layer to do so.

I look back at that time and laugh at my fears. I remember stalking my dad to make sure he wasn’t being controlled by one of these aliens, but I never could keep an eye on him for three days straight. As far as I know, he could still be. What I’m getting at is not that I have a melodramatic way of looking at things, but rather just where are we?

How can you honestly be sure that when you touch the keyboard by your monitor that you’re truly feeling the plastic keys? How do you know that when you have a pop and feel refreshed that you’ve actually tasted it? There have been rumours and experiences that have the world under the impression that you can never completely trust what you see or what you hear; magicians and sound effects are great examples of this. Just because you saw it doesn’t mean it happened or just because it sounds like glass breaking doesn’t actually mean and glass was in fact broken to make that noise.

So what makes you think that you can trust what you can feel and what you can taste? You can’t trust what you smell because they’ve managed to manufacture smells of fruits into other things besides that actual fruit. Honestly speaking, I know what orange smells like but I’ve never actually gotten a scent from an orange. Yeah, you’re probably thinking I’m nuts because I’m so paranoid about this but you yourself don’t know if this reality is a reality at all.

Come on now, if you haven’t seen the matrix let me explain it – don’t dismiss my idea just because I’m a big fan of the trilogy though. In the matrix, computer programs are hooked up to people’s brains and in a way puts them to sleep. They dream that the world they live in, the things they taste, the things they feel are in fact real. There was a quote from one of the bad guys in the movie as he struck a deal with another villain:

“I know that when I put this steak in my mouth… the matrix is telling my brain that is tender and juicy… and you know what I’ve realized? Ignorance is bliss.”

I’m not saying the matrix is real or anything because I personally don’t believe it; it was just a movie. The little hints like that is what got to me; Ignorance truly is bliss. What about all these psychics and magicians you see nowadays? What if they’re some of the few people in this world that were able to see that “Hey! This world isn’t completely real…” and because they saw that this so called “reality” was a ploy, they’ve been able to manipulate it? Far fetched, I know but it’s just a thought. And personally, you’ll never be able to prove it.

None of us will. Reality is an abstract concept that holds no true meaning to it. It’s one of the few words I despise because it’s never been proven or seen for that matter and yet people insist that it’s there. The words Reality, Forever, Nothing, Everything and others among those terms really get to me. How can anyone have everything? How can someone feel nothing? How can Forever be real if there’s an end to everything? What about this reality bullshit? We see flaws in this world that make no sense and have no true definition, and yet we choose to remain naïve and pretend they were never there.

I’ve come too close to dying way too many times to believe there’s a mere coincidence in the way things in this world are conducted. I don’t know for certain if there’s a god; no one does, and anyone who has the balls to stand up to me and tell me flat out that there is a god better bring some bloody proof. And no, bibles don’t fucking count. You can’t believe anything anymore. No one, nothing (these horrible words can be used for this) can be truly trusted.

You never know if tomorrow, your clock could hit 8:00AM and the sun still won’t be up. You don’t know that the sun will rise tomorrow; you just assume it because it happens so often. You don’t know that you’ll still be breathing in the next few minutes; you just assume it because you’ve been doing it for so long. You don’t know how anyone feels because lies are much, much too easy to pull off now.

When it comes down to it, the heart and mind (Who have the nicknames of Skittles and Mittens to me) never tell the truth as it is. Skittles in me is abstract and rather scattered; he lies to no end. Why? Because he knows that the truth hurts people and people matter to him. Nothing is better than knowing that you caused someone to smile in his opinion, so he’d downright lie in order for you to smile. The truth isn’t an option when emotions come into play.

Mittens in me is literally the pessimist; he tells things negatively and often they’re correct. He despises Skittles whereas Skittles adores him. He’s cold-hearted and does what needs to be done, nothing more nothing less. Often I find Skittles lies to me… a lot. He knows I need to hear something positive and he tries to give me false hope, but Mittens takes his thoughts to hell by shooting at them because he knows that the final result in any of Skittles lies are pain.

Why does the mind resent the heart? Because we all have hearts that dare to give a shit for others; the same people who have their hearts lying to others in order for them to feel happy. Nothing said to anyone is truly believable; nothing in this world is real. There is no proof that we aren’t living in some fucked up virtual reality. Every time Skittles reaches out to embrace someone, he ultimately causes pain in them or himself, and when he hurts so does Mittens.

I’ve done a lot of soul searching recently and came to a conclusion on why I feel so wretched most of the time. It’s because I can’t trust people like I used to; I used to believe them when they said they were okay and later find out that they were hurting themselves in some form or fashion. That made me feel horrible because I didn’t press them for information, I couldn’t help them. It was preventable and I couldn’t help them because I wasn’t trustworthy enough.

I started this rant this morning and from the moment I got through the second page I felt numb. I had come to these realizations, and I now know for certain who I am. I’m not going to write it, but I know why I feel horrible and that’s because my heart feels guilty. I’ve done things I shouldn’t have, and I’m feeling a lot of regret but I understand what I’ve got to do. Things that I’ve done in the past are things I can never change, and that’s why I have to look back, acknowledge and be certain that I don’t repeat it. I’ll be sure to show the world the best of me.

As for now? I’m going to kick back and let life drag me along. Whatever will be will be and whatever happens tomorrow will happen then and like always, I’ll take on the problem standing firmly rooted and let it come headfirst. I know now that I am strong. I’m not letting myself be pushed around anymore. I’ll show the world that I can take it on with a grin just like I know I can. There are reasons for everything that happens whether this reality is real or not. Nothing is coincidental in my mind.

As for what makes us who we are? I don’t think anything makes us the way we are. No one makes up your own mind; you do it on your own. Influence is a possibility, but I stand firm by my belief of who we are in this world. We are only who we make ourselves to be…