Illusions of Reality

The Illusions of Reality

The only thing in my life that I can be positive about is change. Everything changes, from the moment we’re born to the moment we die. Reality has many twist and turns, and our perception of reality is what shapes us to become who we are. Our life is spent on deciphering the difference between reality and not reality. This is hard to define because reality is unique to each individual.

Our environment and the people we are around shape our perception of what is real. Reality is our grip of what is true and false, right and wrong, what is real and what is not. So reality can be distorted by our belief in it. We can sincerely believe something is right, but be sincerely wrong.

The foundations of thought and imagination are laid at a very young age. Reality for the deaf and blind is that nothing exists outside of their perception. They do not yet understand object permanence, that even though an object goes out of sight, it still exists. Many children develop this knowledge around the ages of four to eight months old. I was a late bloomer; I did not acquire this until later.

When I was five years old, I was terrified of being left alone. I was afraid to ever be by myself. I had to be around other people or I would have panic attacks. Our dogs somehow had gotten out of our backyard. My mom, my sister and I got in the car and drove around the neighborhood looking for the dogs. My mother drove by our house to check if they had got back yet. My mom told me to see if the front door was unlocked. As I was walking across the front lawn, she drove away. When I was walking towards the house I didn’t hear my mom tell me that she was going around the block and that she’d be right back. To say the least, I panicked. I remember running down the dusty dirt road after her brown jeep thinking that my mom left me and would never see her again. Feelings of fear and abandonment filled my body, and I ran down to the highway screaming with tears streaming down my face. When I finally got to the highway I sat down and started to sob. A lady in a blue car pulled over and asked me what was wrong. She was concerned so she had me get in the car and drove me to my house. We sat there in the car together until my mom came back home. My mom thanked the lady for being so kind, grabbed my arm and pulled m...

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...were destitute, living in barely livable shacks. It showed me how rich I was. They were starving. Not only physically, but spiritually as well. These people had never been showed the truth that the Bible held, or the hope it could bring to their lives. I had never been exposed to this type of living in my life. It made me think about everything differently. I became much more thankful and giving. I was a spoiled brat when I went, but returned changed and unselfish. I changed for myself. At that stage in my life I realized how much I have, and how much I took for granted. I did not like who I was or where I was going, so I changed. I was changed as much as Mexicalli was changed.

There are many points in my life that, when I look back on them, I will have noticed a change that was made. Whether it is when I accepted the Jesus into my life, or experienced a drug for the first time. We shall all be that way. What I’m experiencing right now is real and tangible to me, but maybe I will look back on this time of my life someday and realize that this reality was just a step to another, and that reality another step, then another. What we are experiencing now will eventually be a memory.