Life as Reality, Possibility and Preference

There is a difference between how life is, how it can be and how one believes it should be. The former is called reality, the second I shall call possibility and the latter, how one wants life to be, preference. Reality is the same for everyone, even though the situation one is in might differ (this is distinct from how one sees this reality). Some would say that the same goes for the possibility of life, at least in the respect that no one can change the course of life, that it is all set, whether by divine intervention or socioeconomic circumstances. It is only our preference of life which differ, and sometimes greatly, from each other.

I agree that our preferences are varied, I also believe however that possibility and preference are almost the same. Or at least very closely related. I believe that we as an individual or as a people have, respectively, the power to change our own lives or that of many others, for better or worse.

In an individual case the possibility of life and the preference of life overlap almost one on one, given that the reality is such that one has his basic needs secured. What one expects of life and how one wants his life to be are included in the possibility of his life. Of course whether this will become reality is something entirely different and depends also on other influences.

On a bigger scale this relation becomes more problematic. The global possibility of life, of how the world can be, of how life can be for everyone, exists of all these individual preferences and their relation to each other. The preferences of the most powerful ranking higher than of those who little or no voice. Yet if all these lowest ranking preferences would unite and prefer one and the same thing even the mightiest cannot resist it.

So globally possibility and preference do not overlap one on one. Yet it is exactly this overlap which is needed to create an utopia, of any sort, that will actually work. If every person on earth would want something to be and they all want it to be done in the same way, than this global preference will become global possibility and soon reality.

However, such a world would probably be a very boring place.