If

If

"…the object of the world of ideas as a whole is not the portrayal of reality - this would be an utterly impossible task - but rather to provide us with an instrument for finding our way about more easily in the world." -Hans Vaihinger

I think I overdid it on the sweet tea. When your teeth go into shock with each sip, you might have mixed too much sugar into it. Well, don't blame me. I mean, I did make it, but I'm used to making 5 gallons at a time. I know exactly how much to put into that much in order to satisfy these Southern palates. I  only made 2 gallons and that calls for mathematics and long division and pi...Mmm...pie. Anyway, somebody just said the tea was perfect. So go ahead and blame me.

I'm waiting for these ladies to finish up and go upstairs to their Bible study so I can put away their leftover food, clean up, and go home. I'm sitting here sipping on sickeningly sweet tea, and thinking. Sipping and thinking...

If.

If can be negatively presumptuous. If can be a bearer of hope. If encompasses daydreams and is a harbinger of nightmares. If can create whole new worlds for you to enjoy and explore or entrap you in the comfort of the only one you've ever known. If can keep you wondering, wandering, and pondering.

Ifs abound. If only I'd spent more time showing how much I cared and less on caring for shows. If I'd kept my head more in school books and less in the clouds. If I'd spent as much time on repairing scars as I did repairing cars. If only I'd saved more money and spent more time. If only I'd talked more and assumed less. If money wasn't an object, I wouldn't try to hold on to it so much. If only I'd paid more attention to the health status of the love I had, I wouldn't be stumbling around in this loser suit stitched together with mismatched patches of doomed relationships. If I were a better man...

Those ifs aren't necessarily current ifs. But I have no doubt that they have crossed my mind over these years. And there's no doubt that they will come into my head again, sooner or later. I'm human and humans are prone to imagination; they create scenarios to fulfill needs, wants, even fictitious views of reality, views that fit the way they want things to be.

If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late.
And if I were a good man, I'd talk with you more often than I do.
If I were to sleep, I could dream.
If I were afraid, I could hide.
If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain.
If I were the moon, I'd be cool.
If I were a rule, I would bend.
If I were a good man, I'd understand the spaces between friends.
If I were alone, I would cry.
And if I were with you, I'd be home and dry.
And if I go insane, will you still let me join in with the game?
If I were a swan, I'd be gone.
If I were a train, I'd be late again.
If I were a good man, I'd talk to you more often than I do.
  -If, Pink Floyd

As if.

More often than not, I find "if" to be full of doubt. In fact, I'm impressed to believe that "if" weighs in more on the negative side of skepticism. Most of my ifs are looking at what might have been; looking backward first, before looking forward. Looking forward is almost always positive. Both visions are creating a fictional scene, but I think only in the forward can you live "as if."

In "Philosophie des Als Ob" (Philosophy of As If) , philosopher Hans Vaihinger argued that human beings can never really know the underlying reality of the world, and that as a result we construct systems of thought and then assume that these match reality: we behave "as if" the world matches our models. In other words, we have no idea what's going to happen, so we believe what will happen and live as if it is already so. There is no guarantee that the sun will rise in the morning, we just assume that it will. We can't be sure the world still be here at sunrise, we merely believe it will be. And it's gonna snow tomorrow because we cleared the stores of milkbread...wait, that isn't a good example.

I don't believe wholeheartedly in the as if. I do believe that positive thinking and positive living are grand things and most certainly would have an impact on how you live your life. It's no guarantee that life will go as you plan in the as if. If you live as if everything you love could be gone in time, especially if sooner than later, you'll live (insert euphemism here) like there's no tomorrow.

"As If" isn't a science. It isn't something that can be proven in a lab. It's just a theoretical look on life. It's a view that life can be better if you live as if it already is. So many times I'm tempted to consume time and energy, most often to the detriment of happiness and well being, of thinking of my ifs. Maybe there's something in living as if; as if I'm already living life to it's fullest; as if success is already attained; as if happiness has and always will be; as if life is love.

Because it is, ya know?