Reality Bites

No, I'm not referring to the 90s romantic comedy featuring Ben Stiller, Winona Ryder and Ethen Hawke, which Rolling Stone Magazine described as "pure entertainment" - and which I have in front of me in VHS format (for some strange reason).

It's not that reality is lousy, that it 'bites' in that sense, but that it's unsafe, that it 'bites'. You know, like a dog. Make sense?

Reality is unsafe , it's out of our control. But this lack of safety isn't necessarily a bad thing. As C.S. Lewis explained of the lion, Aslan, when his safe-ness was questioned by one of the children in his stories, "'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver. 'Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'" Life doesn't have to be safe in order to be good and 'safety' loses its value and relevance when fear falls to the wayside.

Reality is all there is and yet we so often continue to dwell in our fantasies rather than pay attention to the present moment of Now, of which there is no other. Dwelling in fantasy doesn't need to imply anything specific. Any moment we spend focused on the past or future, however 'realistic' our perspective might be, is essentially living in a fantasy world. It's not wrong to remember the past and plan for the future but it becomes a problem when they take precedence over our lives right now.

How easy it is for me, for us all, to tune out the reality of this eternal moment, whatever it looks and feels like at any given time, in favour of focusing our attention elsewhere when it seems to suit our desires. This seems to be one of the great common denominators of our human condition: we run from discomfort. Whether we turn to sex or alcohol or coffee or television or a partner or friend or the Sunday jumble in the newspaper, avoiding the uncomfortable parts of reality - as we experience it - is to take a step away from truly embracing life, of really living.

Have you seen the movie, "Click", with Adam Sandler? It's about a guy who gets this remote control that allows him to fiddle around with time and skip parts of life, etc. Well, I haven't seen it either but I'm guessing that the moral of the story ends up being that we only really appreciate and enjoy life when we are willing to embrace the pain and discomfort it sometimes offers us. That may not have been the point at all but it doesn't really matter after having gone this far. Just work with me.

Even though reality is all there ever is, it's not easy to face that, to WANT to face that. Why not? Because it's a lot easier focusing our attention on what makes us feel better, even if it doesn't reflect reality. The choice to truly face life fully means we face ALL of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. That's huge! Is that what we really want? Because my wanting it as a nice ideal is no substitute for my willingness to embrace the pain and discomfort that will inevitably come my way, time and again. And if I've grown accustomed to my fantasies, which I sometimes do, then the 'bite' of reality will certainly not seem very appealing at all.

I think we need to get adjusted to reality. It's like going from seeing black and white to seeing colour. It might seem obvious that colour is more vibrant, more alive, more 'real', but if all we've seen is black and white then that 'real'ness can just seem too intense. Maybe we need to go to gray scale first? I guess we're all at a different place, in terms of our willingness to embrace reality but once again we must ask, is that what we really desire?

Honestly, a lot of the time I am overcome with feelings of fear and anxiety in the face of the really Real. It just feels like it's too much, kind of like the glory of God, that if I completely embraced all of reality, things would never be the same and part of me is terrified of that, of the unknown of it all, like taking a step forward that can never be undone. I hope that one day my desire to take that step will overcome my fear. I hope that for us all.