The Experience Is Real. But What Does It Mean?

We spend a lot of time dividing the world into real and not real.

But reality is a little more interesting than that.

Some things are tangible. You can touch them, measure them, photograph them, weigh them, put them in a box and occasionally lose them underneath your couch.

Other things are intangible.

Love. Grief. Fear. Memory. Trust. Meaning. Thought. Experience.

You can't hold love in your hand.

But if you've ever loved someone, the experience was real.

You felt something. Your body responded. Your thoughts changed. Maybe your behavior changed. Maybe your entire understanding of your life changed.

The experience happened.

But here's where things get interesting.

An experience and the explanation we give it are not necessarily the same thing.

You can experience love without that proving someone is your soulmate.

You can feel an intense connection without knowing exactly what created it.

You can experience intuition without knowing whether it came from memory, unconscious pattern recognition, emotion, or something you can't currently explain.

You can feel afraid without the thing you're afraid of actually being dangerous.

The feeling can be real while our interpretation remains uncertain.

Tangible Doesn't Mean More Real

We sometimes give physical things more credibility simply because we can see or measure them.

But many of the things that shape our lives aren't physical objects.

Trust can determine whether you hand someone your house keys.

A reputation can affect someone's opportunities.

A memory can change how you behave years after an event.

Money is another fascinating example. The physical bill is tangible. The value assigned to it is a human-created system, yet that system has very tangible consequences.

So intangible doesn't mean imaginary.

And constructed doesn't automatically mean meaningless.

Experience vs. Explanation

Maybe we need to become more comfortable saying:

“I know what I experienced.”

while also saying:

“I don't necessarily know what it means.”

That's not dismissing yourself.

It's leaving room for curiosity.

Our minds naturally look for patterns, explanations and meaning. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we fill in gaps with assumptions without realizing we've done it.

The answer isn't to distrust every feeling.

It's to distinguish between what we experienced, what we interpret, and what we can establish beyond the experience itself.

The Intangible Leaves Something Behind

An experience may not be something you can photograph, but it can leave very tangible consequences.

A relationship changes.

A decision gets made.

A memory stays with you.

Someone leaves, and suddenly the same room feels different.

The chair is still there.

The person isn't.

But the experience of their absence is real.

We don't have to turn that feeling into a supernatural explanation to acknowledge its impact.

Maybe We Don't Need to Choose

Perhaps the question isn't always:

“Was it real?”

Sometimes we already know the answer.

Yes. I experienced it.

The more useful questions might be:

What exactly did I experience?

What do I know?

What am I interpreting?

What am I assuming?

What exists outside my experience that supports the conclusion I'm drawing?

You don't have to discredit an experience because it is intangible.

And you don't have to turn an experience into objective fact because it felt profound.

There is a middle ground between “it's all imaginary” and “everything I experienced proves my interpretation.”

It's curiosity.

The experience can be real.

The meaning can be personal.

The explanation can remain open.

And sometimes, not knowing exactly what something means is part of being human. 🌿