On Friday, we took the kids to Universal Studios—we rewarded each other for doing well in school and at work.
There, we waited in line for an hour for the Harry Potter ride. We caught up on a whole week’s worth of conversation.
I realized that standing in line with preteen kids really brings you closer together :))) It’s pretty cramped, narrow, and there’s nowhere to run.
Then we settled into our seats on the ride and headed into the world of Harry Potter.
Well, let me tell you, it was actually pretty scary. It was dark, with all kinds of Dementors and spiders. A dragon was breathing steam right in my face. The most impressive part, of course, was flying on a broomstick with Harry and Ron.
It turns out our brains are really silly. They genuinely can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality. And our bodies follow suit.
Harry was flying on the screen in front of me, and I was actually flying right behind him. My body was lurching up and down; I felt the fear of heights and of falling.
So, through this simple example, I was convinced once again that Omar Khayyam’s poem—“All that you see is but an illusion...”—is the absolute truth.
We view life through the filters of our own perceptions and behave as if that were reality. In other words, we are constantly at the mercy of our own cinematic illusions. It’s both funny and sad how easily we’re led astray and, in a sense, how helpless we are.
What can we do about it?
For me, it’s a choice: do I want to fully immerse myself in these impressions, or can I realize that reality might be a little different than it seems to me…? That’s how I, at least, dealt with my fear of heights. I knew I was safe… and allowed myself to be just a little bit afraid so I could let go of the fear :))).
What methods do you use to separate the real from the imaginary?
P.S. When I got off the ride, I thought that a journey into our inner world accompanied by a coach is quite worthy of a Potter-style ride.
Everyone has their own demons, spiders, dragons, and dizzying flights on a broomstick...
Only it can be even more beneficial, because by facing our illusory monsters, we gradually clear the space and become more aware of how they can be useful in life—for creativity, for our energy levels...