The Book of Life

How do you explain what your Book of Life looks like?

How can it be understood when the world around us seems to be living in illusions?

Is it even possible to make sense of a reality where so much of what we see, think, and believe has been quietly constructed by outside influences?

There is a force—subtle, persistent—that has been shaping what we call reality. Not loudly, not forcefully, but consistently. A steady current, guiding perception without most even realizing it.

We were taught to look outward.

It began simply. A television in the home. A window into the world. Then technology followed—faster, closer, more personal—until now it lives in the palm of your hand, twenty-four hours a day. Information is no longer something we seek; it is something that finds us, constantly. And over time, it begins to form our thoughts, our beliefs, our understanding—without question, without pause.

The news tells a story, and just like that, society sees what it is shown.
Reels scroll endlessly, and just like that, minds begin to align—slowly, quietly—under one shared lens.

But it wasn’t always this way.

If we step back for a moment—into the 1940s or 1950s—people lived within the boundaries of what they directly experienced. Home. Neighborhood. Work. School. Community. The influences were close, human, and rooted in daily life. Culture was carried through tradition, not broadcast.

I saw this contrast with my own eyes.

When I traveled to Italy in 1968, visiting the small village my parents came from, it felt like stepping into another time—almost like a page from the 1800s. Life was not just different in appearance, but in rhythm, in values, in the way people existed together. It wasn’t just individuals who were different—it was the entire society.

My grandmother lived without a phone, without indoor plumbing. Her way of life was shaped by necessity, by land, by tradition—not by influence from the outside world.

When I returned in 1979, little had changed.

But when I went back again in 2000, everything had.

The shift wasn’t just in homes or conveniences—it was in people. In how they thought, how they lived, how they saw the world. The culture had begun to blend. What once felt distant now felt familiar. My cousins’ children mirrored my own. Two worlds, once separate, had quietly merged.

And it all happened through exposure.

Through connection. Through technology.

But it began long before the internet.

It began with television.

Placed into homes first as entertainment—something wholesome, something shared—it opened the door. And because it felt safe, because it brought families together, it was welcomed in.

I remember my father once telling me about the moment he noticed a change in himself. He watched a Western—someone falling, someone being shot—and he realized something had shifted. Not dramatically, but enough. He had become… less affected.

Desensitized.

At the time, television still felt innocent. It was family-centered, simple, even beautiful in its way. But that innocence was also the entry point.

Because if we look at today, it is no longer just entertainment.

It shapes how we see ourselves.
How we see each other.
How we interpret the world.

And most of it happens unconsciously.

We begin aligning with beliefs we never consciously chose. We adopt perspectives we never truly examined. And slowly, we can be pulled further and further away from knowing who we are—at our core.

So the question becomes:

How far can it stretch you before you no longer recognize yourself?

Before your Book of Life is no longer being written by you—but by what you’ve absorbed?

And yet…

Even in this, I do not lose faith.

Because while the world may feel controlled at times—shaped, influenced, redirected—I still believe that true control does not belong to any system, any force, or any constructed reality.

It belongs to God.

And perhaps this time we are living in is not the end of truth—but the uncovering of it.

A clearing.

A breaking down of what was built outward… so that something real can be found inward.

Because in the end, your Book of Life is not written by what you are shown.

It is written by what you come to know—deep within yourself.

And that… can never be controlled.