Augmented Reality
I was speaking with my friend Melissa Amling that other day who was telling me about her virtual reality concept for a new children’s book. It is a very interesting idea to bring children into the world of the book so they could fully experience and become a part of the story. She then mentioned the newest craze, augmented reality. Augmented reality is using glasses to reveal graphics and audio as well as enhancements to our senses, into the actual world around us.
Melissa said augmented reality allows us “to see things that are not there and to experience them as real.” I thought perhaps that Pokémon GO was a type of augmented reality, but to the experts that does not take it far enough. Scientific American wrote a great article explaining augmented and mixed reality. Where Pokémon GO could only be viewed through a phone and was not immersive, augmented reality merges computer produced items into our reality seamlessly creating a new, enhanced reality. I wrote recently about how our brain can be influenced to see things that are not really there and now it seems this technology is making the most of our easily manipulated brains.
“To see things that are not there and to experience them as real.” How often does this play out in our lives? How often does a fear consume us and suddenly cover our reality with negativity? How often do we take someone’s opinion and make it into a truth? How often do we want to believe something is real so we make it into a fact in our own minds? How often do we color everything we see and experience with our own bias and suppositions?
We now live in a world of alternative facts. We see things as we want to see them. We have a narrow view of how things should be and we try to interpret everything we see according to our beliefs and understanding. What happens is we are pained and stressed when the actual reality does not meet our expectations and/or we alienate others because they can not see things through our filters. What we need is to release our beliefs, to release our desire to control, release our fear of reality, and embrace what truly is. Mindfulness can help us get there.
Mindfulness teaches us to release our bias and our filters allowing us to see things as they truly are. Through mindfulness we can experience things as they are without our beliefs and expectations. Mindfulness releases our judgments helping us gain a true view and acceptance of reality. When we are mindful, we are in the present moment. We are not trying to relive our past or feed our fears thereby coloring the present. When we can be truly and completely in the moment we are empowered by seeing things as they actually are. It is in this state that we find peace and clear actions.
You can learn more about mindfulness in this article.
