The past day or so has been quite surreal. I have watched the new year as the world has turned coming to friends across the globe. Although I sat here alone, or went about the daily business of housework, writing and…most importantly… throwing the ball for the dog, I was able to watch the passage of time and was conscious of how our perceptions differ from reality. To be fair, even the nature of reality itself was thrown into question as I celebrated midnight live with friends across the globe… over the course of a whole day.

I generally have Facebook running in the background to stay in touch with people and work for the School. John of Celtic Ways kept up a running Happy New Year as midnight hit across the surface of the planet. It is, perhaps, the first time I have been made so acutely aware of the turning of the earth and the fluidity of the device we call time.

From Australia to Scotland, Asia to Sacramento, I shared that midnight moment as the year turned. Many midnights, but only one was mine, and the moment gone as soon as it came.

By telephone and email, messages and Facebook, modern communications built bridges across the world where friends met to share an instant within an illusory space and time made real only by the touching of hearts and minds. Through social media distance is banished, and though it can never replace the embrace of a friend or a smile shared eye to eye, I watched as isolation and loneliness were eased for many who would have otherwise faced the moment alone with their memories, yet who were, instead, able to transcend the normal limitations of time and space and share it with others. There was simple human comfort in it.

Joy and memory, laughter and good wishes. Many took time to speak of the wishes of their hearts for the coming year, some spoke of causes close to them and I was struck by what a powerful thing social media can be, for good or ill, in changing the attitudes of the world.

It struck me how adaptable we are as a species, how readily we can embrace the plasticity of reality as the rules are bent by our technological advances. Inventions made concrete reality through the power of imagination. There is magic in that.

Imagination can truly move mountains. Especially when it is backed by will and emotion. This I know for certain, from first-hand experience. Many on Facebook today are sharing the extraordinary story of a young man who was stabbed through the brain in 2009. They have followed his journey and supported him since the attack in a way that has been incredible and filled with love and hope. He was told it was ‘unrealistic’ that he should expect to ever walk again. On the front cover of the Bournemouth Echo today the headlines tell another story. One I know very well. Fuelled by determination and will, lit from the heart with love and his desire to walk his fiancée down the aisle, my son is learning to walk again. And took five steps. Twice. Unsupported.

Reality is ours to shape. Each one of us. Alone or together, in our private worlds or connected globally. Nothing is impossible.