We each are built with a central nervous system, including our eyes, brain and spinal cord that distributes all of our feelings throughout our entire body. These individual nervous systems evolve throughout our lives, affected by each experience we go through. We think based off of our reactions and our assumed perceptions without really knowing anything for sure. Reality is but a dream.
Breaking the cycle of our perceptive feedback loop takes free will. But ah, you see, there is a problem with free will as well (which is where the problem of perception compounds upon itself). Free will is an inherent illusion. It is a contradiction. It is something that we have no capability to access until our brains are fully developed. Even then, many choose to go the easier route and continue living life by default rather than taking the bull by its horns and changing their reality.
Why is free will an illusion? From the very beginning, we never, ever chose to be here. We never chose to be born. We never chose who our parents were. We didn’t even have any choice of how we were raised or where we went in the first so many years of life. Our parents, who we didn’t choose, chose everything for us. And so we began to interact with the world, as we would, due to these factors that are all beyond us. Our will is directed by our reactions; in the first decades of life, it is only reacting to our circumstances. If you do desire a change, if you begin to embark upon a different path than your parents choose, it isn’t because of you…but outside influences that show you these different paths, AKA: good fortune.
It isn’t until we are over the age of 25 with fully developed frontal lobes that we may have an idea or a decision to choose and may choose what has not already been outlined for us. It is only once we have the capabilities to think rationally and logically that we can recognize old, bad habits and transform them. Free will is a choice and this choice is given to us only after our brain has the processing ability to be able to make those choices. And even then, once we begin to practice using our free will, our unconscious mind will cease any moment we aren’t paying attention with full consciousness, leading us to slip back into old ways.
The problem with perception is that since we lack the hardwiring to practice our free will for two and a half decades, we become accustomed to the patterns that we develop in childhood. Often these patterns are self-destructive and irrational by nature. It then becomes an issue of how often we can balance our creative mind with our instinctive mind. Our instincts will always take first bat if unattended to. Our creative mind takes effort to access. Our immediate perceptions will most often come from the instinctive mind and it takes a minute for the creative mind to reflect and transform outdated thinking.
What mind will you choose to use today?