The Equilibrium After… Between Reality & Fiction

By Sameh El Khatib

Unanimity in life is a concept that sounds more like fiction. Can we all have uniform perspectives and actions dictating our lives? Doesn’t it seem like a tale and a script of fiction? But what is fiction? When our mind thinks of the word fiction, Hollywood blockbuster movies precedes the scene, but can’t fiction become so engulfed in our lives that it dictates the norms of our day to day activities? Can’t fiction become or be the framework that has transcended into our minute actions and thoughts rendering it far from a fairy tale but an image of a reality we are so keen to hold on to?

 Sometimes it takes a minuscule entity to trigger an event, like the one we are living in now, to shock us as individuals and as a society and force us into a new reality so far from our old existence that we have no choice but to question that old existence and its degree of reality. Was it true, was it genuine, was it authentic, was it humans truly being or was it just fiction?

 An event took place and as we discussed in an earlier article, there seems to be a new equilibrium in life that is being computed as we speak. A couple of months have passed, and I doubt anyone can argue with the immense change that happened to us as a society or as individuals. In a previous article, we divided the new equilibrium formulating the change, as one to do with individuals, one to do with society and one professionally. I will focus here for now on our change as a society.

 Unanimity in Life as a Society

 A core change happened. Most of us suddenly got locked down barely seeing the outside world let alone living in it. Suddenly we have more time on our hands. Suddenly we are not physically interacting with our colleagues, not seeing our friends, not going out for a movie and dinner, not spending time in crowded malls, and effectively barely interacting with strangers.

 Suddenly, our dress habits have changed, our looks have changed, not going to barbers, hair salons, and other similar outlets. Suddenly we are not interacting with hard-working strangers in a gym, and not releasing tensions lifting heavy weights or even going for spa and massage treatments.

 Suddenly salaries have been cut, revenues have been affected, the cost of living has gone down. Suddenly our working hours have changed, the typical routine of waking up on an alarm, and our morning rituals have changed. Suddenly the hassle of getting our kids ready for school, and the morning traffic around the school and on our commute to work have changed. Suddenly we are spending more time with our kids and those hours we spend away from them have disappeared.

 So, what was that bubble we were living in? The bubble did burst, and we are still very much alive and kicking. So, was that bubble necessary? Was it an essential part of us as individuals claiming to be alive to drink that fancy morning coffee, chat with our colleagues, wait in line to drop kids to school, run to make it to a meeting in time?

 If we look closely at it and without emotional bias, weren’t we all adhering to an invisible code of life that dictated most of our time and effort and energy? Yes, what I am saying sounds like the outline of the plot of the movie the Matrix, but in sincerity, what was that matrix we were living in?

 It seems we were all living in an undefined and unspoken unanimity, that to be part of what this unanimity defines as life, we had to adhere to its generic governance structure. Yes, the details are different, but thinking closely, the broad strokes of what was considered to be living, was the same in the roots. We were all one way or another part of this norm that we considered reality.

The Fiction

 So, I ask the question again, was it true? Was it genuine or was it fiction?

Was it a fictitious form of being alive that has rooted itself in our fundamental axioms of belief that it dictated the norms of our collective life as a society? Wasn’t it a framework that somehow has become so embedded in us that it replaced the reality of being alive with the narrative of being part of this fictitious bubble? Was this bubble so strong that we got stagnated in our lives and lost a key aspect of this universe, growth?

 Growth can never come from such unanimity in life and in thought. It defies the rules of the universe where everything evolves, even solid structures. It defies the backbone of our existence as our cells and our atomic structures vary by the smallest unit ever known to science. One might argue that human-induced growth has always inspired innovation, yes but wasn’t it an implicit assumption that individuals that changed the course of life were, in one way or another, peculiar to the generic norms in their surroundings? Can it be that this event is showing us that these individuals were the ones truly living and the rest of us were engraved to a fictitious version of life.

 Us between Reality and Fiction

 Fiction never creates growth, being real produces the most genuine version of fiction.

 Shifting gears now from the unanimity in our societies to the inner harmony in us as individuals, are we as individuals truly being?  There are parts of us that were taught to hide, to go to sleep, that was, or is the real us. Those parts were overtaken by what that framework in our societies dictated and enforced upon us. Have we ever truly seen the real version of all parts within us presented in our daily lives? We spend relentless efforts and energy trying to shut down those parts, it’s not our fault, it’s the defense mechanism we as evolved humans learned to proctor to protect ourselves. We spend hours in the gym, on holidays, in therapeutically induced treatments, doing Yoga to release the tension and stress. But sometimes this tension is the discomfort associated with parts of us wishing to come out so we can truly be alive.

 We do not want to live with this discomfort, we never learned how, it is easier to go on with the weight of the fictitious versions of ourselves induced by the fictitious manifestations of the framework calling itself life around us. Yes, fiction takes the form of heavy luggage in our lives, reality is light. Being real doesn’t have a voice in your mind analyzing and over-analyzing the results of the analysis on every move happening around you. A voice you have become so accustomed to that you believe to be your own voice, the voice of your subconscious. It is not, because your subconscious is the one hearing this voice, being overshadowed by it, and being nulled by it to a point where you don’t even recognize it anymore. Only when this voice is silenced, does your subconscious emerge dictating terms of your actions and producing original and authentic thoughts, authentic to your true self, unbiased towards your inspiration, and only then growth and innovation erupts. Only when you are real, can you be creative, can you be truly at peace, can you genuinely live.

 Creativity requires this reality to overpower your thoughts. Inner creativity induces true actions away from the shackles set to you be everything outside the real parts of you as an individual. Only then can you truly be, can you truly experience joy, can you truly fulfill the destiny set by your soul, only then can express and absorb true love, love to yourself, and to everyone around you.

In conclusion

 The next time anxiety comes out, let it be. Stay with it. Give a safe haven for all parts of you to come out. Learn to forgive those parts, learn to feel gratitude for those parts wanting to come out. Express the same kindness you express to everyone, to yourself. Your real self with all its parts. Only then we may step back into a genuine reality where we evolve as individuals.