Someone just mentioned that there’s a story out there somewhere that I need to read, which uses a stool as a metaphor for reality. Immediately, my mind sparked into this interesting series of thoughts about reality and things…

So, there’s a stool. You know that it’s real because you can see it, and you know it’s a stool because someone once told you that’s what it is. You know that stools are meant for sitting on. It’s a seat, and that’s reality. It’s a fact. Right?

Well, it’s got legs and a place for your butt, and sometimes they have a little bit of a back, so it could be an armless chair too, right?

With legs and a surface, you could put other stuff on it, so that means it’s also a table, isn’t it?

They often have these horizontal bars and a flat space on top, so it’s a short ladder.

If you turn it upside down, it’s great for drying off two pairs of shoes that got wet in the rain. So it’s a shoe dryer.

Or, upside down, you could hang some coats on it, so it’s a coat rack.

If you wrap some screen around it and cap off the legs it’s a cage.

Hang it on the wall and tie some feathers to the bottom and it’s an awesome play space/nap spot for your cat.

I don’t like it or want to use it, so it’s just an ugly bunch of some material jammed together for no good reason.

So is it really a stool? Is that reality? Is it still absolutely a stool, a stool that’s being used as something else, or once used in a new way, does it stop being a stool? Who decides? Does reality change based on use? On perception? On what the majority of people say when they look at it? Does it even matter?

The point here is that we’re constantly being told what’s real and what’s not, what things are, what they mean, and how to use them. The fact is, not many things in this universe are absolute. Just about anything can be something else. When you hold on to absolutes about anything, you’re often missing out on a bigger picture. Use your mind. Look at things in different ways. Think outside the box. Activate and enjoy your imagination. Seriously, when you live your life through other people’s view of reality and fact, you’re missing out on a lot of great things.

Briana Blair

Briana Blair is an author and artisan. She has published more then 30 books and thousands of articles across multiple sites. After practicing Paganism and witchcraft for 25 years, she's now on a journey as an atheist and skeptic. She's eclectic, unpredictable, and always evolving. Facebook - Twitter