My Bubble World
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I recently took an Internet quiz that provided an analysis of my romantic 
relationship. (Yes, I was really bored.) The results were astounding; they claimed that I am too trusting! Vermont psychologist Carolyn Fish says,  "With this attitude, your relationship exists in a bubble. If the bubble bursts, you're lost."

Similarly, a pugnacious Christian electronically assaulted me because I promote 
those evil sins of atheism: truth, freedom, creativity, individualism, love, and happiness. The assailant commented that I live in a fictitious world. "And I'm just waiting for your world to come crumbling down," he said.

People frequently warn me that I am living improperly, even hazardously. 
According to these soothsayers, my wretched existence will continue for a few more years until I perish after contracting some horrible disease summoned by my own irresponsibility. Then I will eternally suffer in one of the many nightmarish, postmortem dungeons.

Many often criticize my slightly eccentric way of life not out of concern for my welfare, but because my reality does not mesh with theirs. Some people believe in the existence of only one morally correct reality; they litter the world with warnings of evil actions and thoughts that lie outside the realm of their myopic reality. Into this contaminated toilet bowl of dingy pessimism, I hereby squirt antiseptic optimism.

Any novice sociology student, or anyone who watched the film "The Truman 
Show," knows that reality is socially constructed. Nothing contains inherent meaning; humans assign arbitrary meanings through social processes. Because meanings are arbitrary, people can change them. Reality is a wet piece of clay, and we are all sculptors.

If people define a situation or statement as real, and act on it as if it is real, then it becomes real. For example, during the Great Depression, rumors of bank failure ran rampant. By defining these rumors as real, and acting on them as real by withdrawing all their money, people created the reality of a bank crisis. In sociology, this phenomenon is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Self-fulfilling prophecies operate on the individual level as well. Most motivational speakers are annoying, but they are correct in their assertion that success awaits those who aspire, plan, and work to achieve it. As author Barbara Marx Hubbard says, "The future exists first in imagination, then in will, then in reality."

Most television commercials, like most motivational speakers, are annoying. 
However, I discovered an Apple computer advertisement that offers a bit of wisdom. It presents images of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi, and others who represent "the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers, the ones who see things differently." Amidst accusations of insanity, the omniscient narrator sees genius because "the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

You, as an individual, have the power to transcend sanity and alter the reality in which you exist. You can create your own reality and be the god of your own universe. In "The Social Construction of Reality," Berger and Luckman write, "In the dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world, the human organism is transformed. In this dialectic man produces reality and thereby produces himself."

In the 1960s, many people used psychedelic drugs to experience alternate realities. Though psychedelic drugs remain quite popular today, we now have a much more powerful mind-altering device: the personal computer. The PC not only allows us to experience hundreds of different realities in a few hours, but it also serves as an information tool for designing and engineering our own realities. According to psychologist Timothy Leary, "'cyber' means 'pilot,' and a 'cyberperson' is one who pilots his/her own life."

As a cyberperson, you can create your own reality, your own symbols, your own mythologies, your own morality, your own philosophy, and, if necessary, even your own religion. Collectivist religions have corrupted human spirituality. They discourage individuals from thinking for themselves, questioning authority, and being their own gods. As Leary writes in "Chaos and Cyber Culture," you can "write your very own Newest Testament, remembering that voluntary martyrdom is tacky, and crucifixions, like nuclear war, can ruin your day."

With help from significant others, you can also create your own unique relationships. Communication and trust lie at the heart of my romantic relationship. I would much rather trust my girlfriend "too much" than experience unnecessary paranoia.

If my relationship "exists in a bubble," as Dr. Carolyn Fish claims, then so be it. I designed that bubble myself, with help from my girlfriend, and we wouldn't have it any other way.