I was thinking the other day about our habit of making things real that don’t exist. I think the technical name is Reification.
Amazing thing when you think about it, let me try to do something here, I’m going to try to argue that Britain does not in fact exist. Though this could go for any nation.
What is Britain? A patch of land, air and water? Some buildings and cities? I don’t think so. After all what is it about those things that makes them British? Put some under a microscope, analyse it, and you won’t find any molecules of Britishness there at all.
In my view, Britain is a set of ideas and concepts, yes there are passports, driving licenses, all sorts of things, but subject them to the analysis above, you’ll not find any Britishness. Without the idea, the concept of Britishness, they’re just so much paper and ink. Our minds are responsible for making it real.
We do this with our problems as well, I’ve caught myself doing it a lot recently, treating problems as a physical thing. I went to a Buddhist meditation session at a local Buddhist centre last weekend, the focus there was on just how much of what you think is important isn’t, it’s all in your mind and it’s just temporary.
I was amazed at how freer I felt when that finally sank in.
Lewis says:
Ye gods you’re right!
I’m glad it sank in Rich. Truly that’s the key to… er… making the understand real… hahahaa.
Of course what I mean to say is that these things can be looked at intellectually, and then never given more thought, to let them sink in, to bring them into yourself at a deeper level is where the understanding becomes wisdom - and alters your behaviour accordingly.
When I read this my thoughts turned to that of ideals and expectations (which of course reflects something about me), which are exactly the same kind of arbitrary concepts assigned by the mind with no basis in reality beyond just being concepts. “I should be able to do this”, “the post should be here already”… examined more closely we see the unreality of these statements.
Thanks for an enlightening post, good to see your mind is still ticking over.
20 December 2006, 5:38 pm