Is life a pure delusion?

Being alive is finite, and how long you’re alive is judged by a fundamental unit of physics: time. Physicists say time travel is possible. But on the practical side, it isn’t. Time is one of the many inventions that humans have encompassed over the years. It (time)occurs in theory only, can you touch it?feel it?see it? You say a clock? No it’s just another contraptions that traps you into the very sense or rather an illusion of time.

One of the sheer and depressing truths of life is that as long as you’ll live, you’ll only live for others. As a child , you would be a bucket of expectations for parents, post marriage , a significant part of someone others life, and then die, only to be buried on this ball of quadrillions of atoms, until it is engulfed by the one sun you once sun bathed in , gained Vitamin D from, and used to heat your water.

There is no meaning of life simply because it’s user-defined: it’s a person’s own perspective. They claim to have been a reason for your presence on earth, but none have conquered it because of the sheer absence of it. At last lie your life to the fullest, while you can. Once there’ll only be an eternity, to contemplate then you may carry on that. Certainly being alive is temporary. It is defined by being different from non existence, either before or after Life, and so is a reality not a fantasy.

Clearly Life is fantastical in simply being and some at least is spent in a dream state when asleep. Also people can suffer from delusions and we all live in simulations which we create in creating a reality model which we then live within. Still the meta reality or source of the sense data we gather appears to be shared with others. It appears Life is not a delusion and testing it to destruction ends it.

If you're thinking it then it's not reality. It's an interpretation of reality that will never completely capture what is actually happening. Thoughts are of course a part of reality in the same way a newspaper is part of reality (maybe not for much longer lol). That doesn't make any of the scribbles of ink on the newspaper absolute truths about what's happening in the world. A better question may be “How can I tell which thoughts are useful to believe or act on?” The proof is in the pudding. Are your thoughts and the actions you take based on those thoughts making you and everyone around you ultimately better off in terms of fulfillment, peace, love, purpose, meaning, prosperity, health, and happiness?

If not then perhaps your thoughts aren't very useful. Perhaps they're deluded in some way. One thought I've found useful is that I can tell if a thought is useful by the way I feel when I think it and believe it. Do I feel uplifted, joyous, relaxed, peaceful, or at least relieved ? That's probably a useful thought to believe and act on. Do I feel constricted, heavy, sad, angry, afraid, unworthy, insignificant, incompetent, or powerless? Then that's probably not a useful thought to believe and act on. Test this out in your own life if you will. It takes some faith to apply this but if you're willing to suspend your doubts then I would expect a lot will change for you. And for the better, at least in the long run.

In other words, a delusion is a thought or an idea that your mind persists in thinking that is real or true even when it’s not. It’s very difficult for the brain to tell what’s real and what isn’t real. Here’s something that illustrates why: Ever had the experience of sitting in a subway or a train car and seeing the train next to you start to move? For a few instants, you can’t tell if you or the train you’re looking at is what’s moving.

In a train, the delusion doesn’t last long. Eventually, you can see the wall beyond the train or you notice the vibrations of your own train, and you’re able to figure out what’s really happening. There are situations in life where, figuratively speaking, there is no way to “get your bearings.” Sometimes, you simply have no way of subjectively determining what’s true and what isn’t. Your brain (and your senses) can easily be fooled. Drugs, alcohol, mental illness, desire, fear, jealousy, wishful thinking, pride, depression, guilt, loneliness, anger, and, yes, even love, can all lead to delusions.

These things are also what make us human. We can’t reliably detect or avoid delusion. We can, however, learn to avoid the thinking that we are immune to delusion by treating even our own thoughts with a degree of skepticism and by using certain easily-learnable techniques. The scientific method was developed over hundreds of years of trial and error by people who understood that our observations, perceptions and opinions can’t be relied upon.

While most of us are not scientists, we can still adapt some techniques and attitudes to our day-to-day lives in order to prevent our minds from succumbing to delusion. Be skeptical about everything —especially your own assumptions. Rely on evidence rather than emotions or hunches. Get in the habit of considering the source and quality of evidence. Can it be independently verified? How reputable and knowledgeable is the source?

What reason is there to conclude that the source is not lying, deluded, or mistaken? Learn to recognize and accept the difference between what you want to be true (desires), what you think might be true (opinions), and what is actually true (facts). Keep an open mind about everything. Be open to the possibility of being wrong. Welcome the opportunity to learn and change. Cheers!