Reading, Experience and Reality

One of the things that frustrates me most about aging is that I can't read for very long at a time because my eyes get to bothering me.  I suspect it is at least partially because I spend too many hours looking at a computer screen -- either large or hand-held -- and they are already strained.

It is growing clear to me that I will never be able to read all the books I want to read before I am gone from this earth.  I hope one of the things available in heaven is a library of all the world's literature and that we will be able to read in the original language.  I guess that really won't be necessary since our knowledge will be perfected and much of what we think we know will likely be completely incorrect.

That's another thing that is somewhat frustrating.  As I age, I realize there are many things I thought I knew about which my thinking was incorrect.  The longer I live and am exposed to different experiences, the more I realize that my limited experience limited my understanding.  What were once certainties are now often surrounded by doubt.

Part of that changed understanding is from reading the books I mentioned.  More of it is a result of meeting and talking to people who have had different experiences than have I.  It is amazing to me how we each see things differently and react differently to the things that happen in our life.  Is reality actually a function of perception?  I ask that because reality to each of us is different and it is based in our perceptions.

I sometimes wonder if we are living in some artificially induced reality that we perceive as existence when instead, the universe is something totally different and we are being manipulated in our beliefs and perceptions by some unseen force that has us plugged into a mind-manipulating apparatus -- much like in the movie "The Matrix."  Doesn't it sometimes seem like what is happening around is completely unreal at times?  How do you explain deja vu?  How is it that we sometimes feel connections to people who are hundreds of miles away and are thinking about them  just before they call?

It's no wonder I doubt what I think I know -- it is easier to think clearly without clutter.  Maybe I shouldn't read so much??