This question is the basis of almost all philosophical thought since homo-sapiens could stack rocks, and yet somehow we’re no closer to objectively answering it. Clearly, within our human relationships, we find ways of communicating our experience to others. We use language, like I’m using right now. From there we create adjectives to say, “Red is red and blue is blue.” But for this discussion let’s just shed ourselves of the burden of this particular sense of, “reality.”

In fact, when we discuss reality on a daily basis, we very rarely dispute the color of an apple, or the solidity of a rock. What we often discuss is the way the world is. Virtually every day we discuss and argue with people that do not understand the way the world is. And every day we see the consequences of ignoring the power that those subjective realities hold. Be it religiously motivated terrorism, or the hatred created from years of repetitious radical racism, subjective reality is easily observable as a powerful and ever-present force.

“Well, that’s psychosis. Subjective reality isn’t reality.” All that we can truly verify, is our own reality.

Descartes’ famous quote illuminates this limit of human perspective: “I think, therefore I am.”

Within that reality, we are free to pursue happiness, but that subjective sense of reality has always had more power than we might attribute it.

Perhaps you’ve heard someone say, “You create your own happiness.” What is that but choosing to adjust the way we see the world, for our own sake. And if we’re able to truly adjust our perspective on the world, are we not changing the nature of the world itself? At this very moment your world is constructed not of just objective truths or experiences, but of amorphous, impressionable perspectives. Whether those perspectives are, “right” or, “wrong”, we are living through them.

For many, these perspectives are built up over years—they don’t just appear one day (like the absurd to Camus). They develop deep within our subconscious and then we unknowingly project them onto the world. The way we view the world is directly correlated to who we are, and how we see ourselves.