A Break from Reality…. #6 #cong23 #reality
Synopsis:
Reality can be scary. We sometimes try to artificially control it to ease our minds. Some seperation is useful, ultimately, living is a team sport.
Total Words
Reading Time in Minutes
2
Key Takeaways:
- Seperate yourself to gain perspective
- Reality can and will be abused
- The Observer has a different reality to the Object
- If you stray too far, you might need a rescue team
About Alan Costello:
Many things startup and investment @Resolve Partners & Resolve Ventures
Many things Climate orientated there and also www.naturalcapitalireland.com
Contacting Alan Costello
You can contact Alan by email, connect with him on LinkedIn, see his work with Resolve Partners and read his thoughts on Medium
Leaving the unreality of TwiX.com soon
By Alan Costello
I’m writing this in a fairly unreal place.
I’m in a log cabin, by a lake
I have no family, no dog, no laptop, no work.
No phone.
Thats how unreal this is.
I’m on my 1st ever personal retreat, taking some time to refresh, think, write and empty my mind between two very busy periods of time.
I’m initially struck by the clip of David coming from the dentist and wondering “Is this real life”, but its not that type of retreat.
Now we are sitting in Cong-gregation. 100 heads from a variety of walks of life, united by curiosity & community. It is of course an alternative reality – away from our day to day lives, taking space to wonder, engage with new and old.
And we do not all live in a bloody big Castle.
I’m picturing the Mouse that controls us all, that is looking on from the outside at the 100 of us. A bit like the early experiments in reality TV – potentially interesting experiments led by Endemol Media, but very quickly degenerated into force fitting people into the Big Brother house with scripts for the viewers entertainment.
Dont even start me on Married at first sight.
What are people like when they are in a group, on stage, broadcasting.
Brian Friel explored this with Public Gar and Private Gar in Philadelphia. Does Cong bring those inner thoughts into the public, or a version of them. Which is the true part, the reality of what we are all proclaiming this weekend.
Some alternate realities are not alternative any more. I cant watch Black Mirror anymore since my work tells me this is not Sci Fi, not alternate fiction, not fake, but possible, almost current. A mirror is of course reflective of what you put into it, albeit the other way around as you are reminded when Zoom asks you to mirror your video to turn you the ‘right’ way around again.
Black Mirror contributes to me being very very very nervous of the power of deep fakes. We think about reverting to ‘serious, trusted mastheads’ like the BBC, Guardian, NYT and ignore the biases they deploy in search of what is mostly the reality of major events.
I’m interested in the phrase – “break from reality”. Do we want to get away from it? Does it have to be broken to preserve us, or allow us to retreat from danger? I guess its closely related to escapism. Simplistically, I think to escape is a good thing. What is wrong with our reality that this becomes the escape, the retreat. All the language of the defeated army.
Well, a ‘break’ is less military, more easily synonymous with a holiday, or a weekend away……