I like the idea that the things we pay attention to become our reality. What we are aware of at each moment is just a minute fraction of the reality available to us. To see all of the reality available to us at once is to be blinded, paralyzed by sheer sensory overload. Maybe not just sensory overload, but noise – to the point where nothing makes sense and just the task of curating what is perceivable is too daunting. We are fortunate that our brains start filtering these things out early on. Filters provide us an ability to function at all. They create a canvas around us, focusing our actions so that productive progress can be made. The amount of control we have over our own realities is the degree to which we are able to choose what/how we see things. It’s a mix of determinism and free-will. I like to imagine a filter in the shape of a (spherical) 3D mandala around the edges of each our conscious perceptions. The (mostly self-selected) ons and offs create these loops around our perception, showing us certain things and hiding others.