“We are meaning makers and time binders. Each of us brings a world of experience to our understanding. We even think we understand things for which we have no experience of. We identify with or associate memories and beliefs and opinions for the experience and draw conclusions which may or may not be valid. It is part of consciousness to be wrong while thinking we’re correct.

We also can think we’re wrong when we could be correct. Correct is relative since we never see the picture in entirety. We see portions of it and think it’s the whole. We make assumptions based on very little information and wildly jump to conclusions about everything. We think we are right during this. We almost always think we are right. That’s part of being human and we dislike being wrong.

It makes us uncomfortable. We defend the fictions we build, the beliefs and opinions. We guard them. Argue them. When I say we jump to conclusions people will be for the sentence is completed. When feedback is offered, some remain open. Others defend what they did. Some miss the point completely because they are busy trying to fit the feedback into what they think they know and did.

Create The Life You Want

Reality is not our description of it, but we only have our description of it. If I say Mona Lisa most people may know what I refer to. Many will conceive it. Each will do it how they have experienced it. If I show a picture of it each will see what they see. We think we are all thinking and seeing the same thing, but we aren’t. We’re seeing our version of it. Yours and mine overlap, yes but it’s our version.

We can share meaning and understandings. We think we mean the same things. To some extent we do. Still what goes on in one’s head is different from what goes on in another’s. It must be. While we are born into the same world we are shaped differently even in the same family, neighborhood and culture. This is great news. It’s also the basis for our pain and miscommunication.

If I give 10 people instructions, they all hear it and process it differently. Some get close to carrying it out as instructed. All will carry it out as instructed. Some will say, ‘oh, I thought you meant…’ Others will defend what they did because, ‘what you said was…’ We hear and process differently the same stimuli. Again, this is both wonderful and can be the basis of suffering. It’s all good in so many ways.

Celebrate Everything!

The choice we have is not obvious to most. We can hope to understand the process best as we can and attempt to gain awareness of it and its affects on our lives. We might begin to realize we’re always acting on limited information so we are always doing the best we can with what we know. We do things and sometimes don’t get the results we expect but if we’re open, we can adjust and continue.

We can make better attempts to stay open and listen instead of assuming we know what the other person is saying. We can let the information come to us instead of stopping it with our reasoning. All of this is delicate and takes awareness and practice staying open. We quickly close. If someone defends what they said or did based on a statement from another, they likely thought it wasn’t liked or valued.

Get that! That may not even be the reason for the statement. We learned this in childhood. We did something, and someone said it was wrong or marked it wrong. So we do things now and if someone says anything about it other than praise, the tendency is to defend it. They’ll recount history. They’ll say, ‘well, you said.’ The miss the point because they think what they didn’t wasn’t liked. Notice this.

Awareness Is The First Step

We interpret. We put our meaning on or over everything. Most of us don’t realize this. We just do it because it’s what we do. If we agree we like hamburgers, we can agree on many things and never truly know what each other experiences. We think they mean and experience the same as we do. They don’t. Consciousness is beautiful. We’re different cells of one thing operating differently.

We’re different cells of one thing operating similarly. We think we are the same or different when neither is completely true. It’s what we think it is whether it really is or not. That’s what subjective experience means. It means it is your experience not everyone’s. Although we think IF it is ours it IS everyone’s too. We think we are the same EXCEPT for those we claim are different.

When we form groups, we overlap what we THINK we share. AND we do share some things, but it is more nuanced that we can ever understand. The point to all this is you can never know, have or own the complete truth on any topic although you can think you can. You don’t but that doesn’t stop you from thinking you do or arguing with someone about it. If you think you are right, you will think it.

If You Always Do What You Always Do You’ll Always Get The Same Results

Still, we are fooled by illusions all the time. Optical illusions help point this out. We think it’s one thing or one way when it isn’t. That holds some keys to our understanding in how we approach others and the world. It’s true about how we understand ourselves. We think we know ourselves based on the information we use to define ourselves and that’s picked from limited examples we claim are true.

The truth is that it is far more multifaceted than we can ever imagine. It is also true it is far simpler than we typically make it. We never have complete truth but a facet of it. What we think is true may be in some ways but not all ways. To make sense of the world we follow maps. Road maps and internal road maps. We map reality and think the map is the reality. It isn’t. A map is ALWAYS incomplete

No more so than a road map is the reality. It’s a description that is representative of the reality but it is only a description. If you realize this, you are closer to liberation. If you understand everyone has their own inner road map you are ahead of the game. There will be some areas of overlap and some areas that don’t. Overlap means you might agree on aspects of the overlap. Other areas you won’t.

The Map Is Not The Territory

A representation is never the original. A map always leaves things out. It must. It’s a map. Yet, most never realize we’re internal mapmakers and assign meaning. Consciousness is beautiful. We suffer because we think we know ‘truth.’ Maps aren’t meant to be defended, but celebrated and enjoyed. We are the same and still we’re not at all alike. We’re all different yet the same. We use maps!

What I say you understand, however you understand it, completely independent of what I meant or intended. Still, you think you know what I mean, even when you don’t. Get this and freedom is close. There will be those who agree with me on this and there will be those who don’t because of the very conditions I just described, and they’ll never notice what they are doing UNTIL possibly they do.

That’s the nature of it. That IS the illusion. We think. We think we know what is meant AND we do but only from our internal road map. Remember subjectivity. Objectivity doesn’t truly exist. We attempt to be objective from our subjective and very personal road map. We aren’t, but it’s okay to attempt it if you don’t think you hold the objective truth while others are ignorant. Sad, but his happens a lot.

Your Map Is Not The Only Map: There Are Over 8 Billion Maps And More Historically

Consciousness and our understanding of it is delicate, fragile like a flower. It unfolds. It opens. If we can be open, we can discover more. If we close down and shut down, we miss. Life is more than we can ever say about it. So are you and me. We have limited descriptions about vast processes but think our descriptions are accurate. They aren’t complete, that’s for certain, but we think they are.

We miss if we defend our description. Be open. It’s one of the most difficult things we encounter. NOTICE that statement is not true either. It may be incredibly easy. What you think it is determines much about it. Thinking is wonderful and limited and yet, vast and incomplete. All of life is reflected in a blade of grass but we can’t describe it all. What to do? Suffer or celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes