In my previous article, I discussed the abstract concepts that humans have created for survival and as part of our evolution. There are countless such concepts, and together they form the frameworks through which we collectively understand reality. But reality does not affect only humanity as a whole. It is also experienced differently by every individual. So now, let us explore reality at the personal level.
The Psychological Phenomenon
Every person on this planet sees reality through the lens of their own mind. The same event can be experienced, processed, understood, remembered, and responded to in entirely different ways by different people. The external event may be the same, but the internal reality it creates is not.
Consider childhood trauma. Two people may go through similar painful experiences, yet those experiences may shape them very differently. One person may eventually confront the trauma, seek support, understand its influence, and build a peaceful and fulfilling life. Another may continue carrying its effects for many years, struggling to escape the emotional patterns created by the experience.
Some people transform their pain into empathy. Because they understand suffering, they become compassionate leaders, caregivers, activists, or sources of support for others experiencing similar difficulties. Their pain becomes part of the reason they want to protect and help people.
Others may respond by becoming emotionally withdrawn, distrustful, controlling, aggressive, or harmful. They may reproduce the very pain they once experienced. This does not mean that trauma automatically creates either compassionate people or cruel people. It means that the same kind of suffering can interact differently with each person’s biology, environment, relationships, opportunities, coping mechanisms, and interpretation of what happened.
Because the human mind is not a camera that records reality exactly as it happens. It is more like an interpreter. It receives incomplete information from the outside world and combines it with memories, expectations, emotions, beliefs, opinions, bodily reactions, conditioning, and previous experiences to decide what the situation means. So, although two people may face the same external event, they never meet that event with the same internal world.
For example, imagine two employees receiving criticism from their manager.
One thinks: “This is uncomfortable, but it will help me improve.”
The other thinks: “I am being humiliated. I am going to lose my job. I am not good enough.”
The manager may have said exactly the same words to both people. But one person experiences feedback, while the other experiences rejection or danger. The difference may come from their histories. Perhaps the second person grew up with a highly critical parent, was frequently punished for mistakes, or learned that love and security depended on performing perfectly. The present event activates meanings created by the past. This is why people often do not react only to what is happening now. They also react to everything the present situation reminds their past of. So two people can be experiencing the same situation, perhaps externally. But psychologically, they are not. We do not experience events merely as they are. We experience what those events mean to us.
Behind the Science
Biologically, each individual differs from others. People have different temperaments, sensitivities, stress responses, emotional regulation capacities, and levels of impulsivity. One person’s nervous system may return to calm relatively quickly after a frightening event. Another person’s body may remain in a heightened state of alert. They may continue feeling unsafe even after the immediate danger has passed.
Neural connections and brain structures also matter because each person’s brain develops a unique network of neural connections through genetics, development, learning, and lived experience. Different brain regions like the amygdala, Hippocampus, Prefrontal cortex, etc., constantly communicate with each other. If one system becomes more reactive because of genetics, chronic stress, or past experiences, the person may genuinely experience the world differently.
Different functions of the brain, like attention, memory, thought processing, survival instincts, and the release of hormones by the human body, all affect the way we perceive reality. All this clearly shows that the brain is not a passive receiver of reality but an active constructor of experience based on incoming sensory information and prior knowledge.
Modern neuroscience says something similar. It suggests that the brain is an active prediction and interpretation machine. It constantly combines sensory information, memories, emotions, expectations, attention, and previous learning to construct your conscious experience. This means that perception is not just “seeing what is there.” It is the brain’s best interpretation of incomplete information.
We indeed perceive reality through the limited capacity of the mind. From an evolutionary perspective, any living being’s main objective on this planet is survival and reproduction, including human beings, and the human brain has evolved to help us survive and adapt to our environment. As a result, out of the enormous amount of information constantly available around us, the brain filters, prioritizes, and processes only what it considers most relevant at that moment.
For example, imagine people walking down the same road. An architect may immediately notice the design of the buildings; a mother would be extra careful of the vehicles while walking with her child; and someone who has experienced a recent robbery may instinctively scan the surroundings for potential threats. The physical environment is identical for all three individuals, yet each person’s brain selects different information based on their knowledge, experiences, memories, interests, and current priorities. This clearly shows that our brain continuously decides what deserves our attention and what can be ignored based on what our brains consider most relevant for survival, adaptation, and the goals we are pursuing. I believe Subjective experience is different for each person, and it is based on a combination and permutations of millions of factors.
But if people experience reality differently, another question naturally follows.
Why does the same adversity strengthen one person while overwhelming another? One interesting framework for understanding this comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of antifragility.
The Concept of Antifragility
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former trader, statistician, philosopher, and author, introduced the antifragility concept in his 2012 book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. The concept is simple: He realized that there was a word for things that break under stress (fragile) and a word for things that resist stress (robust or resilient), but there was no word for things that actually become better because of stress. So he invented the word antifragile.
Imagine a glass cup. Drop it. It breaks. Taleb called this fragile. Now imagine a rock. Kick it. Nothing happens. The rock survives. Taleb calls this robust. Now imagine going to the gym. When you lift weights, something strange happens. The exercise slightly damages your muscles. Your body repairs them. The repaired muscles become stronger than before. That is antifragility. These phrases were created later by readers, coaches, motivational speakers, and psychologists trying to apply his idea to biology, psychology, and human behaviour.
Suppose three people lost their relationship because of X reasons. Person A becomes depressed for years, may eventually shut down emotions and stop trusting people. Person B casually enters another relationship with approximately the same emotional openness and behavioural patterns as before. The experience neither permanently damages nor meaningfully strengthens them. Person C learns the lesson, works on themselves, makes an effort to heal themselves, and finds love again without repeating the patterns.
The same stress produced different outcomes. Person A behaved in a fragile way, Person B behaved in a robust way, and Person C behaved in an antifragile way. Different systems have different responses to volatility. The event is identical. Only the system processing the event differs.
Now, if we understand the context of reality under the same concept, Reality is not experienced directly. Reality is filtered through the structure of the observer. A fragile observer constructs one reality. A robust observer constructs another. An antifragile observer constructs yet another.
The Nature of Reality
This is a very interesting question because this is where the definition of reality kicks in. Reality is the totality of everything that exists, occurs, or has existence, independent of whether it is perceived, understood, or believed. Based on this, we can broadly divide reality into objective reality and subjective reality.
For example, let us take a river; a river is a physical body that is present and flowing irrespective of what we say. That is objective reality, because it exists independently of human interaction. But in many traditions, humans have worshipped rivers for the benefits, value, and dependence we have on rivers like the Ganga River in India and the Nile River in ancient Egypt. The rivers are still the same, but humans interpreted them as sacred manifestations or deities because of their purity and the civilizational ecosystem built around those rivers. This is subjective reality. This is purely based on how we interpret the existing water bodies and attach meaning to them. This subjective reality differs from person to person.
The interesting thing is, this points out to the discussion above that the physical world and internal world are ever-changing. Because a river might dry up or change direction. The subjective perception of the river regarding its importance might also change with time; also, the meaning attached to it might also change inside a person’s natural process of upgrading worldview perception based on his circumstances. So I feel the reality is that nothing is permanent, whether it is objective or subjective.
The Limits of Perception
As I said in my articles regarding abstract concepts that humans have created, humans have created so many illusions around us that it is hard for us to see reality, but not impossible. I believe we can achieve a state of self-awareness about subjective experiences and objective reality; we can understand the nature of reality, even if not reality directly.
When speaking about contemplative traditions, Buddhism also says something similar to what I said before: 1. Reality is impermanent (Anicca). 2. There is no permanent self (Anatta). Buddhism also talks about an interesting concept: ‘Reality is interdependent’. For example, A flower depends on sunlight, water, soil, insects, time, climate, and evolution. Without those, there is no flower. This implies that Reality is Dependent on Cause and Effect; I believe this is an interesting way to look at it.
Beyond Perception
This is a very interesting question. Human beings have always been not only curious creatures but also good at understanding patterns, connecting dots, and finding solutions that benefited us in thriving.
Before it was discovered that the Earth is round, people used to think that the Earth might be flat or that the Sun revolves around the Earth rather than the other way around. Did we ever perceive it through our senses like vision, smell, touch, etc? No. We only came to know the reality of those celestial bodies after actually perceiving them through observations, patterns, and using scientific tools. Then, before the invention of these tools, how did we come to conclusions? Because the human mind is curious and always searches for answers. If we cannot find an answer, we try to make an explanation and create meaning through our imagination. Imagination is the act or power of forming a mental image of something that might not be physically present to the senses. So, yes, I believe we always try to understand and explore reality even without perceiving it through our rare cognitive abilities that we developed during evolution.
Conclusion
In my previous article, based on abstract concepts humans created, I wrote that because of all these illusions and frameworks we have created, we may or may not ever see reality. One of my philosopher friends left a beautiful comment that completely shifted my perspective. He wrote, “Even though humans invented these abstractions, humans themselves are products of nature. Therefore, whatever humans create can be attributed to nature.”
That simple observation stayed with me for a long time. I had been treating nature and human abstraction as though they were separate, as if reality existed on one side and our interpretations existed on the other. But perhaps that distinction is artificial. If human beings are products of nature, then our capacity to create language, tell stories, imagine possibilities, construct meaning, and build abstract concepts is itself a natural phenomenon. Perhaps reality is not something hidden behind these lenses. Perhaps the emergence of minds capable of creating abstractions is itself an expression of reality.
Inkwellery by Abhi 
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