The Observer
- TMMA
- Jul 9
- 4 min read
Why the person experiencing reality changes every time they observe it.
TL;DR
The world isn’t the only thing that’s constantly changing. The person observing it changes too. Every experience, conversation, success, failure and belief subtly reshapes the lens through which you experience reality. That means your understanding of the world is never final because you are never final. Growth isn’t about collecting better answers. It’s about becoming a different observer. The more aware you become of the one doing the looking, the more freedom you have to question old beliefs, let go of outdated identities and remain open to whatever reality reveals next.
Throughout this series, we’ve questioned certainty. We’ve explored perception, contrast and the stories we inherit. Each article has peeled back another layer of experience, yet there’s one assumption we’ve quietly carried through all of them. We’ve assumed there is a fixed observer standing behind it all. We’ve assumed that while our ideas change, the one having those ideas somehow remains exactly the same.
Lately, I’m not convinced that’s true.
Think back to who you were ten years ago. The things that kept you awake at night probably don’t carry the same weight today. Conversations that once felt life changing may now be little more than memories. People you believed would always be part of your story may have quietly disappeared, while complete strangers have become some of the most important influences in your life.
Was that still you?
Of course it was.
But it was also someone else.
The observer changed.
That realization has been sitting with me for a while because it quietly reshapes everything we’ve talked about so far. Earlier in this series we explored perception as the filter through which we experience reality. We looked at contrast as the mechanism that allows experience itself to become visible. We questioned the stories we’ve collectively agreed to live inside. Yet every one of those ideas depends on something we rarely stop to examine. Someone is doing the observing.
The interesting part is that this observer doesn’t seem to stand outside the experience. It appears to be shaped by it.
Every difficult conversation leaves behind a new perspective. Every heartbreak changes the way we trust. Every success influences our confidence. Every disappointment alters our expectations. Even time itself quietly transforms the person experiencing it. The observer is not watching reality from a distance. The observer is participating in reality, and being changed by it at the same time.
That changes the way I think about certainty.
How could I expect today’s conclusions to remain perfect forever if the person holding those conclusions is constantly evolving? Every belief I’ve ever had made sense to the version of me that held it. Some of those beliefs still serve me. Others no longer fit the person I’ve become. That doesn’t make my younger self wrong. It simply reminds me that growth changes the observer as much as it changes the observation.
There’s something incredibly freeing about that.
It means I don’t have to defend every opinion I’ve ever expressed. I don’t have to pretend I’ve always seen the world this way. In fact, I hope I don’t. If I look back five years from now and see no change in the way I think, observe or question, I might have stopped growing long before I realized it.
This has also changed the way I look at other people.
It’s easy to judge someone for the beliefs they hold today. It’s much harder, and much more compassionate, to wonder what experiences shaped those beliefs in the first place. Every person you meet is observing reality through a lifetime of victories, disappointments, fears, hopes and countless moments you’ll never fully understand. Their perception didn’t appear overnight. Neither did yours.
Maybe that’s why I’m becoming less interested in arguments and more interested in conversations.
Arguments try to determine who’s right.
Conversations explore how we arrived where we are.
One closes the door.
The other leaves it open.
The more I pay attention, the less interested I become in defining myself through permanent labels. Every identity feels temporary because every experience has the potential to reshape the person carrying it. The observer isn’t a finished product. It’s an ongoing relationship between awareness and experience.
Perhaps that’s what being human has always been.
Not reaching a final version of yourself.
Not discovering one ultimate truth.
Not arriving at the perfect philosophy.
Perhaps it’s participating in a reality that continuously transforms the one participating in it.
The beautiful part is that this works both ways.
As the observer changes, the world appears to change with it.
Not because the mountains move or the oceans disappear, but because every new version of you notices something the previous version couldn’t see. Reality begins revealing different patterns, different relationships and different possibilities, not because reality suddenly became different, but because the one looking became capable of seeing them.
That’s why I no longer feel the need to arrive at an answer.
Every answer belongs to a particular version of me.
The question belongs to all of them.
Not because answers have no value.
Because questions continue growing long after the answers have reached their limits.
Question to sit with
If the person observing reality today is different from the person who observed it ten years ago, what makes you so certain that today’s understanding is the one you’ll hold forever?
If something here stayed with you, lean into it. Text 647.338.1265 or leave a voicemail and we may feature it on the podcast. For deeper conversations or inquiries, email info@thementalmasteryalliance.com.
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