Understanding that our realities are subjective and malleable gives us access to a tremendous power: we can control the filters we use! We can “change the channel”, as Wilson puts it, and tune into different realities at will. We don’t have to stay locked in one — in fact, people trying to do is at the root of most major conflict.

We can slide between reality tunnels by consciously choosing to pay attention to things we might normally ignore. It’s hard, at first, but is a skill that we can develop with practice. Train yourself to pay more attention to the emotions of the people you’re speaking too, for instance, and you’ll be surprised at how much richer the world gets. Train yourself to pay attention to your caloric intake and eating fundamentally changes. Train yourself to hear the voices of minorities and suddenly you see racism and sexism everywhere.

(This, incidentally, is why activism works — this is also why ‘magic’ works. Reality is malleable.)

Those other reality tunnels were always there — you just needed the key, you needed to unlearn your default filters and exert some effort into creating new ones.