OUR PERSONAL VERSION OF REALITY CHANGES OVER TIME.
Daniela di Toro, who participated in the Paralympics in Rio de Janiero (2016), was just 13 years old when her life changed dramatically. She was at a swimming carnival and a wall collapsed on a group of students and snapped her back. She went from an able-bodied tennis player to a disabled tennis player who had to learn how to cope with the wheelchair as well as her frustrations. However, she has embraced her disability and has turned it to her advantage whilst also becoming a Youth Group Leader.
Link to prompt: There many reasons why people’s version of reality changes over time, but certainly first-hand experiences or a change in our physical, emotional and psychological situation can make us confront dilemmas, deal with obstacles and reconsider the dominant stories we hear from powerful voices.
In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller shows that Biff and Happy adopt their father’s illusions about wealth and success. They, too, are coloured by Willy’s obsession with the American dream of opportunity, status and popularity. Both follow Willy’s views about the importance of personality and are conditioned to see life through his rose-coloured glasses. Willy boasts to the sons that he is greeted by mayors in the major cities such as Providence and that he is well known, “they know me up and down New England” (24). Happy shares this version of reality and tells Biff, “we have always told the truth in this house”. He introduces Biff to his friends as the “quarter-back of the New York Giants”.
However, sometimes we have our own intuitive sense of what is right for us. Sometimes our own unique experiences, lead to growth and change as we reshape our own views and values about life. In this regards, Biff exposes Willy’s affair and his life starts to unravel. He realises he will never be the “Red Grange” type hero who earns “twenty-five thousand dollars a year’. No amount of wishful thinking will help him achieve his dreams.
Through a great deal of soul-searching, Biff realises that he has never lived up to his father’s goals and expectations and begins to reject the views and values that seem to undermine his wellbeing. Owing to “false pride” and lies and deceit, Biff resents the three months he spent in jail. He says, “I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail”. Biff rejects the American dream of opportunity and wealth (cult of personality) that consumes Willy. He rejects a system where people feel a need to “get ahead of the next fella”. Intuitively, he feels a connection with the “outdoors”, with working “with your shirt off”. (16) He enjoys herding cattle in Nebraska, and the Dakotas”. He states there is “nothing more inspiring – or beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt” (16). Biff says that the things he “loves” most are: “the work and the food and time to sit and smoke.” He wonders, “why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be”.
A change in our physical condition, can lead to a change in our mental outlook and hence differing perspectives. A near tragic accident or near death experiences can heighten our sensitivity and alter perspectives on life. Closeness or first-hand experience has a big impact upon a change in perspectives as does an accident that may involve a significant physical change. Like Daniela di Toro, Brad Connelly’s life changed suddenly, when he broke his neck in a bodysurfing accident. As a paraplegic, Brad had to learn to communicate through lip-reading and renegotiate significant relationship patterns in his life. He has to learn to live with the feeling of being a constant burden and the impact this has on his reality, his identity and his life. (“I shattered so many people with my injury.” From a tactile perspective, he also had to rethink his relationship with his children as he can only feel their skin through his face. As he states, “It’s not how I envisaged being a father”. His relationship with his wife Pam is not physical but rather they “sit and talk for hours” contemplating “life’s big questions together”.
Contrastingly, a change in experiences can also lead to a change in our social realities and political reality. Sometimes personal experiences may make us challenge official narratives and
often this may come with considerable personal danger. Edward Snowden’s reality changed the moment he blew the whistle on the NSA and tried to confront extent of the government’s secret surveillance network. He had become so alarmed at the extent of the deceit that he decided to make public millions of documents so that “citizens around the globe” can talk about “what kind of world we want to live in”. His reality changed from the life of a successful intelligence analyst to the life of an individual avoiding capture by US officials. Likewise, Jang Jin-Sun, renowned North Korean poet, wrote in his memoir, Dear Leader (2012), renounced his career working in the Propaganda Unit for Kim Jong-IL, because of the extent of the lies and deception. At one stage so successful were his poems that he was singled out by the leader for praise. However, he found it difficult to reconcile the military excesses of the regime with the starving hordes on the streets. He became disillusioned when he saw a woman begging in the market, trying to sell her daughter for 12 cents. After fleeing the border, he too, lives a life in exile. He wrote his memoirs, Dear Leader, and has become an outspoken critic of a regime holding millions of desperate poor people hostage in North Korea.
OUR REALITY IS NEVER OUR OWN BUT INFLUENCED BY OTHERS
After the murder of 17-year-old school girl, Masa Vukotic, in Doncaster last year the chief Detective Inspector Mick Hughes told ABC Radio National that parks are not safe for females. “I suggest to people, particularly females, they shouldn’t be alone in parks”. Likewise, in the wake of attacks by ISIS, the government plastered posters at Southern Cross Station from floor to ceiling reminding us, “if you see something, say something”.
Evidently, the ability of governments, law and order officials and the media to condition the public to see danger in their immediate environments, undermines each one’s ability to control their own reality. Official institutions and powerful spokespeople and media outlets control our reality through images, information and slogans. For example, when it comes to terror-related attacks, we are not always in a position to have first-hand experience or access to information and so we depend upon the government to inform us about the risks, which may often be exaggerated. One detective said that we are ignoring known threats to investigate potential ones. He said in the past three years, known “urban terrorists” have raped three innocent girls. “We have got it wrong with the allocation of resources.”
Likewise, in extreme cases such as in dictatorships like North Korea, the public is deliberately kept ignorant of international affairs, and the leaders manipulate the public’s reality. The Leader, Kim Jong Il, the former commander believes in the power of propaganda to influence the mindset of his people. He says, “I rule through music and literature”. The workers in the Propaganda Department, construct glowing cultural and political stories that encourage its population to support the myth of a world power. Its people are conditioned to see Americans as enemies ….
If government leaders seek to shape our realities, so too, do our parents and role models who, are likely in a position of authority and who have a big influence on how we see our place in the world. They shape our views and values about life and steer us towards our dreams. Their expectations and role models, heroes and experiences also have a big impact upon how we see our place in the world.
In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller depicts the Loman brothers who both, at the start, adopt their father’s illusions about wealth and success and about the possibility of living out the American dream. Both follow Willy’s views about the importance of personality and are conditioned to see life through his rose-coloured glasses. Happy introduces Biff to his friends as the “quarter-back of the New York Giants”. He also fabricates information about his role in the business, his position Willy boasts to the sons that he is greeted by mayors in the major cities such as Providence and that he is well known, “they know me up and down New England” (24). Happy shares this version of reality and tells Biff, “we have always told the truth in this house”.
However, sometimes we have our own intuitive sense of what is right for us. Sometimes our own unique experiences, as we grow, shape our own views and values. In this regards, Biff exposes Willy’s affair and his life starts to unravel. Contrastingly, owing to different first-hand experience and as the first son, Biff discovers his father’s affair and everything changes. Then he stole a suit and ended up in a jail in Kansas for three months. He realises he will never be the “Red Grange” type hero who earns “twenty-five thousand dollars a year’. No amount of wishful thinking will help him achieve his dreams.
Biff realises that he has never lived up to father’s goals and expectations. Owing to “false pride” and lies and deceit, Biff resents the three months he spent in jail. He says, “I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail”. Through a great deal of soul-searching, he comes to realise the extent of the father’s treachery. Biff rejects the American dream of opportunity and wealth (cult of personality) that consumes Willy. He rejects a system where people feel a need to “get ahead of the next fella”. All he wants to do is “be outdoors, with your shirt off”. (16) He enjoys herding cattle in Nebraska, and the Dakotas”. He states there is “nothing more inspiring – or beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt” (16). Biff says that the things he “loves” most are: “the work and the food and time to sit and smoke.” He wonders, “why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be”.
Likewise, Jang Jung Sun also becomes the son who resists the Father state. The poet has his own moment of discovery when he sees the woman…. And mounts his own personal resistance, fleeing across the River… to Beijing.
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