By Joseph L. Bass

Humans have difficulty dealing with reality. We develop within our minds an imaginary fiction that helps us look out into the world and feel good, feel secure, feel happy.

What is “reality”? Reality includes all things that have existed, exist now and will exist in the future. Because of our insecurity, we develop a fictional order of things in our minds. This results in a framework of thinking, a lens so to speak, through which we view the world outside ourselves.

Although our lens for viewing the world helps us feel good, it includes its own challenges. If we attempt to make the world a better place, we must recognize and address realities. Improvement efforts based on fictions will not result in improvements and can result in making reality worse.

My role as a columnist and social activist is to help people see realities and discover ways to improve society without people becoming too insecure to take necessary actions.

Examples of this reality versus fiction state of affairs has recently been exposed through uses of computer applications such as Facebook. People that create, maintain, expand and use these technologies envision them being used for “good” based on imaginary fiction that all people are “good.”

Those assuming this fiction have been shocked to discover that some people are “bad” and use technologies for evil purposes. People have broadcast live or posted online shootings, murders, abductions, tortures and rapes involving innocent, good people as victims.

Naïve people that are “disturbed” by these realities campaign for technology fixes, failing to be able to recognize and address the real human, social issues involved. For them, technology is the problem, not the people.

Naïve people also find disturbing that police cannot arrive in time to stop people from murdering innocents and committing suicide. In addition to calls for technology solutions to human problems, they also call for new government programs.

The first step in citizens bringing about social improvements is to be willing to face our realities and attempt to promote actions that will address them. They must be willing to tolerate the truths found in editorials written by people like me who are sometimes the focus of anger because we speak the truth and expose realities they do not want to face.

We all must learn to accept that the reality versus fiction state of affairs exists and learn to consider other points of view that are upsetting. We are all like that. I’m like that.

I have a problem looking in the mirror and seeing the result of being married to “Ms. Temptation” who was schooled in the culinary arts and serves up incredible food. But I have a solution to my problem. I’m starting a campaign to establish a Federal Bureau of Obesity that will enforce a background check and 30-day waiting period for the purchase of knives, forks, spoons and chop sticks. I’m sure that will solve my problem.

Joseph L. Bass is the executive director of ABetterSociety.Info Inc., a nonprofit organization in Hobson. Email him at ABetterSociety1@aol.com.