Perception's Take on Reality

The ability to perceive this world as we may, is a blessing and a curse. I am guilty of using perception for both the better and the worse. As perception can be reality, is reality perception? Does the ability to perceive doubly give us the ability to create a reality? Reality, as is defined by the dictionary widget on my dashboard says, "1. the world or state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to idealistic or notional idea of them." So, does perception give us the ability to create reality? Who created "reality" in the first place? Who decided that this or that is "real" and this or that is "not real"? Why do our perceived opinions ride back seat to someone else's perceived opinions that long, long ago apparently became a reality? Though it is through perception that we find our views, we are graded on how realistic our views are at the mercy of those who uphold the common realities of this world... which of course must be true if everyone believes in them. This scares me because it only took one person to make a perception a reality, and if people don't probingly perceive the world around them to find answers that may not have been lightened as realities previously, then what do we have to gain but the further advancement into a robot-like society where no matter how creative,convincing, or legitimate your perceptions may be, they are wrong. That is wrong. I refuse to go along with everything that i don't agree with. I choose to let my mind fight with itself and wrestle with the philosophical, moral, and spiritual issues that i don't perceive as real or true. Though i will go through times of despair and times where i perceive the world around me to be in shambles, i will aspire never to be a lukewarm person... to never be spit out. I will aspire to be hot OR cold and i will pursue the path chosen with all my force. Perhaps our perceptions don't align, but our basic realities are the same. At the end of the day i could be exhausted from writing in circles on the premise, that is, perception versus reality, but the it's alright. I perceive that reality is not the same for everyone and different people have capabilities of living in different realities, however skewed they may be. What's your perception on reality?