The Shape of My Reality- Digital Art by Tracey Grumbach

About this image: My latest obsession is podcasts. I still have lingering issues resulting from my the Chronic Lyme infection I have been dealing with since about 2011, including auditory oversensitivity. As a result, I rarely listen to music, especially anything louder than spa or classical music, in the car anymore because it feels like someone is grating off my skin with a cheese grater, only in my ear. I know, that makes no sense to most people, but that is the only way I can describe it. Anyway, since I rarely listen to music and I live in a rural area at least 30 minutes drive to any civilization (read: stores), I have started to listen to podcasts. Things like Brains On! Science Podcast for Kids (when the kids are in the car), TED Radio Hour, The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, REAL Simple Podcasts, The RobCast, and others keep my brain engaged and my perspectives open while driving in my daily life. What does this have to do with this image?  Good question, glad you asked.

So, one of the podcasts I was listening to from TED Radio Hour was all about our five senses and how humans perceive the world. One of the people that the host interviewed is Issac Lidsky (who was on the show Saved By the Bell years ago!), who lost his sight as a young man. One of his quotes that grabbed me was the following:

You see, sight is just one way we shape our reality. We create our own realities in many other ways. Let's take fear as just one example. Your fears distort your reality. Psychologists have a great term for it - awfulizing, right? Fear replaces the unknown with the awful. When I was diagnosed with my blinding disease, I knew blindness was a death sentence for my independence. It was the end of achievement for me. Blindness meant I would live an unremarkable life, small and sad and likely alone. I knew it. This was a fiction borne of my fears, but I believed it. If I had not confronted the reality of my fear, I would have lived it, I am certain of that.

(If interested, here is the transcript of his section of the podcast.) Seriously, how powerful is that statement? SIGHT IS JUST ONE WAY WE SHAPE OUR REALITY. Let that sink in. We are largely, and some would argue completely, in control of our own reality. We shape our reality based on how our brains receive and process information, how our fears shape the truth, how our backgrounds and experiences form unique-to-us connections in our brains.

So, why then, knowing that each of us is so incredibly unique, can we not respect the uniqueness of our fellow man...lately sometimes even those who we called friends or family before the election? What we all feel is REAL TO US. Why do we have to say the way we perceive the world is right and the way you perceive it is wrong? The fact is, none of us sees true reality...it is all just a picture formed in our brains from our senses! Let's all be nice and get along and respect each other' view even if we don't agree with it.

So, this digital collage was born out of these thoughts...that each of us has our own unique human experience here on earth; that each one of us perceives the world slightly (or greatly) different from every other human being on the earth...and yet we are all still so beautiful and loved (if you believe in our Great Creator like I do.)

Have a listen to the full podcast:  It is very engaging:

Let's all try to be just a little bit more tolerant of differing views. There is no need for name calling, putting down, hysteria, and broken friendships because we are different! The End.

Have a beautifully blessed day.

xo