Play with your filter

Cathedrals calm me down. Instant injection of peace. They’re a great place to meditate, everyone just thinks you’re praying. I guess meditation and prayer are kind of the same thing.

I learned you can just go in and out of mass. It’s cool that it’s chill like that. Also had the thought that what you wear says so much about how people perceive you. It feels sacrilegious but you could just wear a cross and people would think you’re Christian.

I really like the ones with stained glass windows. You look through greens and reds and blues and the whole world outside is a different world. It’s someone’s specific, opinionated way of looking at the world - their filter they’re sharing with you via their window.

Filters are how we perceive the world. You could live in the old adage of rose-colored glasses, a world full of awe and grandeur. You could see imperfections all around you, waiting to be criticized. Sometimes we create our own filters other times we fall into ones others create around us. And we often shift filters taking us from one mode of seeing reality right into another.

I went to Arnold, California a couple years ago. It’s a funny place with a funny name. There are lots of cabins nestled in trees. It’s totally a fire hazard, but a really beautiful one.

I was there to change my filter (although I didn’t know or call it that at the time). I was there with the goal of questioning. To get out of the city, challenge all current reality, and come out with some sort of clarity. Questioning is an uncomfortable filter. It’s nice to accept reality, to sink into it’s coziness. But states of discomfort often lead to great progress.

That’s the thing with filters - they’re hackable. Once you’re aware of them, once you can see a filter, you can change it. You can go to a new place or talk to a certain person or listen to specific song and induce a new way of seeing reality. You can simply choose what filter you’d like to perceive the world with.

You can also try on filters, borrow someone else’s filter for the day.

I like understanding how other people think. I like experiencing just normal days in other people’s lives. Going to their regular coffee shop, trying their usual drink. Pointing something out and seeing how they react versus how I react and witnessing our distinct filters right next to each other.

Filters are powerful. I’ve found it to be important to be aware of the filter I’m wearing and make sure it’s intentionally the one I want to be wearing.

Steve Jobs had his Reality Distortion Field, a type of gravitational pull that would bring people into his orbit, where they’d put on his filter, convinced by his view of the world and vision for the future. I think these reality distortion fields are beautiful. I admire to them. Even aspire to them. Fields can lead to some of the best work of people’s lives. Inspiration. Meaning. But it can be useful to know that you’ve chosen to be there - that you see the field, that you can leave the field.

It’s fun to play with filters. Reality really is very malleable and every moment has infinite realities you can choose to interact with.