#reality checkpoint

[going-astronuts]

❗️

Reality checkpoint for when you’ve just seen something so unhinged you feel like you have to go and lie down

[merpmonde]

The Reality Checkpoint

In the middle of Parker's Piece (no relation to the Thunderbirds character) in Cambridge, stands a lamppost. The only lamppost on the common, a beacon and a reference for anyone walking there at night. A bit like the lamppost in Narnia. A lot like the lamppost in Narnia in fact, as it serves as a boundary marker between the university and the town, two worlds with distinct notions of reality. That's one theory behind the name, the Reality Checkpoint.

Another theory suggests one should use the checkpoint to assess their clarity when going back from the pub, and this view certainly calls reality into question... Not to worry, the Ferris Wheel is just being dismantled.

This ornate lamppost has been restored in recent years, and improved with a Dinky Door. Well, I say "improved", but the note on the door says "on holiday, please check reality yourself"!

[margravelucian]

January the 7th. I changed my route to work experimentally, to include more green space.  This meant traversing Parker’s Piece and passing Reality Checkpoint. The grass was very muddy, hypnotically so, and when I actually got to Reality Checkpoint, I looked up and was swallowed by its largeness and became completely disoriented.  I have crossed Parker’s Piece so many times and never immediately got completely lost as I did that day.  I shall plan a different route to work.

[margravelucian]

5th of January.  Cambridge has a large four-way lamp post in the middle of Parker’s Piece that is called Reality Checkpoint. It has always been called Reality Checkpoint - in fact, the words are carved numerous times into its painted base by scores of amateur carvers. Even my Dad knows it as Reality Checkpoint, as it was when he lived near it in 1974.  It even has a Wikipedia page.

Why it’s called Reality Checkpoint is ambiguous.  Some people say it’s where the “town” meets the “gown”: the exact point where you leave “University space” and enter “the real world” - but this isn’t true as there’s always been college accommodation and Faculties beyond Reality Checkpoint.  Some people say it’s the exact real centre of Cambridge, but I’m not sure that’s true either.

I think it is one of the three places where the body of the giant, terrifying, time-eating, space-warping, forgotten god that sleeps under the city comes closest to the surface.  I am utterly convinced of this.

[music4thebasshead]

Logistics - Reality Checkpoint

[friendlyaifrombillsghost]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir6ppUZbT_o 

[bisexualpiratequeen]

Unreal city by alexbrn on Flickr.

[disismyfuckingurl]

When Reality Hits.

I just realized I wasted my childhood waiting for something to happen. Instead of making a difference, I waited for opportunties to come to me. In the future, I want to chase after them.

After all, I'm only human.