WHAT IS REALITY?
Elangovan, October 9, 2018‘Your actions are determined by your prevailing awareness, determined by your dominant needs,’ according to L.S Barksdale. Human action, or behavior, is therefore influenced by ones awareness of their surroundings, whether this awareness is conscious or unconscious. Your awareness has to be of the reality around you, things as they actually are, if it is to constructively mold your behavior. Reality is not just the actuality of your circumstance, but also your response to and awareness of this actuality. And it is this awareness that informs ones true behavior. Just what is true behavior, though?
Intro to True behavior
Some people cuddle, and some don’t. Some people have a firm handshake, while others avoid touching other human beings altogether. While some people smile easily, this can be a painful exercise for some. Showing affection to others, protecting or defending yourself, threatening or exerting your own power on others are all behaviors that can or cannot be true. We all have the ability to feign affection, and we can all pretend to be threatening, when we ourselves feel threatened. We can all fight when we absolutely have to, but we can also choose to flee, which is also a perfectly acceptably means of defense. Do these choices constitute true behavior? Yes, and no!
It is true when it is a reflection of a conscious decision that you made, from your conscious brain. But it is also not true because it is a choice! True behavior, in its purest form, however, is that behavior you cannot help. This behavior, or these behaviors, come from a place that you really have no control over, your subconscious brain. While you can control what is fed to your subconscious, you have absolutely no control over how this brain processes the information being fed to it, or in fact, what it will do with this information. Let us discuss the subconscious briefly!
Where It Comes From? (The Sub-Conscious Brain)
Earl Nightingale famously said, ‘whatever is planted in our subconscious, and nourished with repetition, as well as emotion, eventually becomes our reality!’ This is not to say, however, that you can control the resultant behaviors. When you plant a seed, for example, try as you might, you will not have any control of the plant that grows! This is the core of the subconscious brain. Your judgments of people and situation might be conscious at first. But if you repeatedly experience the same thing, this becomes a belief in your subconscious. What your subconscious brain then does is to formulate a reaction based on the repeated experiences.
For example, if you meet a person who treated you badly, and this person had distinguishing physical features, let’s say a long nose and green eyes, your subconscious brain takes note of this. And then, when you meet other unpleasant people, you subconsciously check for these distinguishing physical features, because your subconscious brain needs conformation of what you already believe to be true, that people with green eyes and long noses are unpleasant! This is illogical, yes. But once you have established rules in your subconscious, then all control goes out the window.
Can it be controlled? (No)
Behaviors controlled or informed and influenced by the subconscious brain really are beyond your control. This is because, as its default setting, your subconscious brain is illogical. It forms behaviors based on the requirements of your life, and the events and circumstances around you, not needing these to make sense. It just strives to make your life more convenient by creating automatic responses, especially to things that you do often. So, true behavior is driven by your subconscious brain, as we have seen. While you perform tasks via your conscious mind, many of your actions are dependent on your subconscious brain. True behavior, as we have said, is therefore beyond our control. Once you have programmed your subconscious brain, or rather, once you have accepted certain beliefs, your subconscious runs with it and forms your true behaviors.
Quote Some Short Examples
A great example is driving an automobile. When you first learn how to drive, you focus on the entire process. You worry about the gear and clutch, and how these work together. And you also worry about every obstacle, every bump, and every single pothole! But then your subconscious brain takes over. It is no longer a conscious effort to drive a car. Gear changes and avoiding obstacles becomes automatic. The process of driving and the decisions needed for driving become automatic. You can even talk on the phone and listen to music while driving, so automatic becomes the process.
Another example is if you hold out your hand in front of you. You consciously picture a lemon in your hand. Automatically, your mouth will start to salivate, because your imagination has told you that there is a lemon in your hand. The subconscious brain is illogical, and it really just believes whatever your conscious brain thinks and feeds it.
Conclusion
Your reality will inform your behavior, therefore. And this is based on your awareness, and what you accept as reality. This, in turn, informs your true behavior. And this true behavior is rooted in your subconscious. That is where it comes from, these true behaviors. So, what you do in life, most of what you do in your journey, is representative of a series of subconscious actions. The knowledge you gather along the way forms your vital knowledge. You form conclusions about people and circumstances, distinguishing them as good or bad, and this informs your true behavior. L.S Barksdale said too, in conclusion, that ‘everything you do is determined by your awareness, and since you are not your awareness, you are not responsible for any fault in your behavior. Rather, it is the fault of your distorted or limited awareness.’ It is important, therefore, that your awareness of your reality is accurate and true. If not, your subconscious will be fed distortions that will lead to distorted true or automatic behaviors.
References
L.S. Barksdale, Observable Reality of Human Behavior, Essays On Self-Esteem
Tony Fahkry, Subconscious Mind and its Impact on Our Behavior, Jul 18, 2012
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