I sometimes think reality is a consensus. We all agreed that we would regard what we saw around us as the truth. The consensus happened a long time ago, when people first began thinking and since then each of us is born into it. It changes slowly and the consensus has to hold, enough people adapt to the new way of thinking so the rest are dragged along, or if it doesn’t catch on we go back to the old way of thinking. I know that physicists say that they are describing reality as our development from the big bang and there may be a place for that too. All physicists agree about it anyway. I like the idea that people make a consensus by agreeing what is. It’s like you can’t change anything unless you get an agreement from everyone.

Certain people tell us we can make our own reality and we can, within bounds. Reality is so strong we can’t move it all the way to whatever we desire it to be, no matter how hard we think. I can’t wish away the tree outside my window. I have to pay someone to chop it down. I did that with a few trees once. I like the trees but it was bushfire season and not worth the risk of keeping them. My neighbour was glad too. Leaves were falling on his clean brown backyard tiles. He might have changed reality by saying something to me about it and I might have chopped the trees down earlier but that might be as far as making your own reality goes. Imagining something and doing it. It’s actually very powerful. Cities have been built that way.

Reality seems to happen when I’m hoping for something else. When I have lots of things to do, I need a longer day but it stubbornly stays the same length and I get tired anyway and have to continue tomorrow. I think most people get tired and have to continue tomorrow, or maybe they just want to get home to their families. Either way, the day stays the same length. Some would tell you it’s physics but I wonder if a large proportion of us thinking so, maybe 80-90% of the population could push the Earth into a longer orbit? Could we ever reach that sort of consensus? Given the effort it’s taken on global warming, I’m sceptical.

Maybe that’s how it should be. Changing reality should be harder than just consensus, we should work to get it. If stopping global warming were just a matter of 80-90% of the global population wishing the Earth cooler, would we have windmills and solar panels and electric cars without even trying. Would they just appear in the landscape? Would there be a battery storage unit in every garage? How would we make new ones if we needed them? How would we understand what is happening?

How do we imagine the new? I rather think books and movies are good for that. They present possibilities and so often we wish they were true. When I finish a good book, I look for more by the author and if it’s been a long series and I’ve been absorbed in it for weeks, I walk around dazed until something new distracts my attention. I wonder how I could shape the world to be more like that in the novel. Given that I read lots of science fiction, with lots of spaceships, I think that one would be hard. Must ask Elon Musk.

For me, reality is having bought my house a long way from the city and getting up at 5am every day for work. Even the kookaburras are laughing at me. I need to convince hidebound men who are older than me (and I’m no spring chicken) that I should work from home because I will get so much more done (if I stop spending my time at yoga classes). That did all change with Covid-19 and all it took was the tendency of the Chinese to enjoy bush meat. “Is it true that the Chinese will eat anything on four legs?” I asked a Chinese friend around the beginning of the pandemic. “Well, we draw the line at tables,” he said. Still 80-90% of Chinese is a lot of people.

Reality is peace and quiet, listening to the little ticking noises my house is making or the hum of the water heater. Reality is occasional strange noises outside. Reality is waking up to rain when I want to go to the beach and staying in bed with a book instead. Reality is watching the world get lighter outside my window as I read the morning paper. These are things I hope will never change.