Virtual Reality

Statutory Warning: This post has elements of philosophy, its strongly recommended that you read it with a cup of coffee in hand!

After having taken a sabbatical from blogging, I am back again! And for those who believe this blog is for Asimov and Clarke fans, nah, I have something else in mind.

After having pondered over the thought process of how life could be previewed from different point of view in my previous two posts, this is one is one life as it ACTUALLY is. The Real life.

I sometimes tend to believe most of us do live pseudo lives. A face which we have to show to the world, which is so much unlike our inner selves. We tend to live virtually outside, without any breaks, day in and day out. In fact, we get so used to our virtual lives, that we tend to forget our real selves.

Duh, big fuss, grunt, yawn… The same Philosophy again…

But I have something different to say. Maybe not so different. I feel as a life goes on, we start to lose our inner self to our virtual self. We become so used to a pseudo life, that we forget what’s real. Ventriquolists (people who can mimic others’ sounds) often say that they forget what their own voice is like. Even actors tend to think that the effect of the character which they portray does rub off unto them. Going back to Good old Shakespeare, who says life’s a stage, and we all portray characters. I believe the situation is not so simple.. we all have our mini-stages inside that one large stage. Life itself is a play, but we are busy with so many of our own ‘acts’ in between, that we tend to forget what the original play was all about.

In fact, most of us do suffer from this identity crisis within our own. We present a part of us to the world, which is really not us. Deep down we know we are just putting a mask, a cover-up, and are playing con-artists all the time. But the question is with whom are we conning? Its ourselves. Down the line, a point comes when we tend to think that we ARE the person we are trying to portray, and accept that as reality, and the original self whom we really are, becomes the con-artist. Roles switch, without any of realizing when and how. We start to doubt our own selves at times, trying to think whom we really are.. are we actually the self we are portraying, or are we the self that we think we actually are.. or neither.

But despite the fact.. we do go on with lives.. confused about ourselves yet commanding others, not sure about our own real selves, but trying to show the others their real self. Maybe there isn’t something called a ‘real’ self….its all virtual.

Thus we actually live in a Virtual Reality. A reflection of our own, and in a zone somewhere between what we actually are and what we’d like to be.. but actually achieving to be neither….