Reality is Not What You Think

Reality is Not What You Think

You think you’re in control. You think you see the world for what it is. You believe your senses deliver a faithful, high-fidelity stream of reality to your brain. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit. You’re not seeing the world; you’re seeing a story your brain is telling you. A story based on incomplete data, past experiences, and a whole lot of evolutionary shortcuts. And the moment you truly grasp this, the moment you realize your reality is a construct, everything changes.

The Problem: Your Brain is a Lying Machine

We walk around like we’re living in a documentary, but we’re actually starring in a movie of our own creation. Your brain isn’t a passive receiver of information. It’s an active, relentless pattern-matching machine. It takes fragmented sensory inputs—a flash of light, a snippet of sound, a fleeting smell—and instantly compares them to its vast library of past experiences. It fills in the gaps, makes assumptions, and presents you with a coherent, seamless narrative. The problem is, that narrative is a heavily edited director’s cut, not the raw footage.

Think about it. The human eye can only perceive a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. We’re blind to infrared, ultraviolet, and the cosmic radiation bombarding us every second. Our ears can’t hear the ultrasonic calls of bats or the low-frequency rumbles of elephants. We are, in a very real sense, living in a sensory bubble. What you call “reality” is just the sliver of the universe your biology allows you to access.

And it gets worse. Your brain is also a master of cognitive biases. It’s lazy. It prefers easy answers over hard truths. It seeks out information that confirms what it already believes (confirmation bias) and ignores anything that challenges its worldview. It creates heroes and villains, simplifies complex issues, and constructs a black-and-white world because it’s easier to navigate than the messy, chaotic, gray-scale truth.

“You are not experiencing reality. You are experiencing your model of reality. And that model is always, always wrong. It’s just a question of how wrong.”

This isn’t some philosophical navel-gazing. This is the fundamental misunderstanding that keeps people stuck. Stuck in bad jobs, bad relationships, and bad habits. They’re fighting the wrong battle. They’re trying to change the world “out there” without realizing the world they’re actually living in is “in here,” between their ears. You can’t win a game you don’t understand you’re playing. And you, my friend, are playing the game of your own mind.

The Application: Stop Polishing the Mirror

So what does this all mean for you, right now, in your life? It means you need to stop trying to polish the mirror and start realizing you are the mirror. Your reality is a reflection of your internal state. If you want to change your life, you have to change your model.

It makes me laugh to reflect upon some of the choices I've made in my former life. Man was I a fucking idiot! I used to resist change; I used to hold on to things that were not; I made horrendous decisions every day, all in the effort to preserve my ego and resist change.

It wasn’t until I encountered Dr. Bob’s work that the lightbulb went on. I realized I was the one creating my own suffering. My model of reality was broken. I was clinging to a past that didn’t exist and fearing a future that hadn’t happened. I was living in a prison of my own making.

Even though at that point in my life I had probably read fewer than a dozen in total (and most only because I was forced to by school or parents), I turned to books in a desperate attempt to find answers. I had a gut feeling that there had to be something more to life. I began studying everything I could get my hands on to try stop the downward spiral I had finally recognized as the all-consuming pattern of my life. I discovered the classics and began to devour the wisdom of the ancient Greek and Romans, the spiritual work of the Vedanta and the Gnostic Bible, the seminal self-improvement books of Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie, and the latest research in quantum mechanics and quantum theory. The more I understood, the more I gained the confidence to integrate these ideas into my daily life. Slowly but surely, I found myself actually changing and recognized genuine improvement. I was actually able to talk to women without looking at the ground. I was able to attempt new things even in the face of certain failure. I began to find meaning in what I had previously dismissed as meaningless. I began to search inside myself for answers.

Slowly but surely, my model of reality began to update. The world didn’t change, but my experience of it did. I started seeing opportunities where I once saw obstacles. I started feeling a sense of flow and connection where I once felt alienation and despair. I stopped being a victim and started being a creator.

This isn’t about positive thinking or reciting affirmations. This is about fundamentally rewiring your brain. It’s about embracing the chaos, the uncertainty, the beautiful, terrifying truth that you are a self-organizing system on the edge of chaos. It’s about learning to surf the waves of entropy instead of trying to build a dam to hold them back.

The Takeaway: How to Update Your Reality Model

Ready to stop being a BLP and start flowing forward? Here are some practical ways to start updating your model of reality:

1. Embrace Novelty: Your brain craves new information. Break your routines. Take a different route to work. Listen to music you’ve never heard before. Talk to a stranger. Travel. Do something that scares you. Every new experience is a data point that helps your brain build a more accurate model of the world.
2. Question Everything: Don’t take your thoughts at face value. When you have a strong emotional reaction to something, ask yourself: What’s the story I’m telling myself here? Is it true? What’s an alternative story? Become a detective of your own mind.
3. Feed Your ECS: Your endocannabinoid system is the hardware that runs your reality software. Support it. Get enough sleep. Eat real food. Move your body. Meditate. And yes, cannabis, when used responsibly, can be a powerful tool for shaking up your model and seeing things from a new perspective. It’s not a crutch; it’s a catalyst.
4. Seek Discomfort: Growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. It happens at the edge of your abilities. Challenge yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. The burn you feel is the feeling of your model expanding. The pain is the feeling of your old self dying to make way for the new.

Closing

The world isn’t what you think it is. It’s so much more. It’s a chaotic, unpredictable, and endlessly fascinating dance of energy and information. You are not a passive observer; you are an active participant. You are not a victim of reality; you are its co-creator. Stop clinging to the shore of the known. Let go of your outdated maps. The territory is alive, and it’s calling to you.

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