It has finally hit me between the eyes: reality is interaction. Interaction is the only reality. It is a whispered message out of the swirling, mysterious world of quantum mechanics. It is the between-the-lines message of everyone who has told me that the only reality is the NOW.
It explains my experience that yesterday’s blooming zinnia only exists as an image in the photo I took and now look at. It exists only as the memory that left an imprint on my mind. It exists only in my looking at the photo or my imaging it in my memory.
It explains why I have been pursued by the conviction that I shape my own reality, because I am part of the reaction that creates that reality.
Do things have reality outside our interaction? I think so, because of the interaction between all things. The tree falling in forest does make a sound. But things are part of my reality only to the degree that I interact with them.