"It is what it is" vs "Life is what you make it"

Can both, in fact, be true? Can there be an objective and a subjective reality, separate but overlapping, both simultaneously visible, like transparencies on an overhead projector?  (Ha, I'm dating myself again.)

"It is what it it" suggests that whatever you and I might think of some thing, object or event, there is an certain inherent is-ness to it. It is an object, and it doesn't give a fuck what you think. Try imagining some soft, pillowy properties in a brick and see how far that gets you. A brick is a brick, not a nice pillow. Unless you are a robot. With a metal head. See, because then it wouldn't matter. You can basically lay your head anywhere because it's made out of titanium robot-head material, so you're good to go. 

OK, my language centers have taken a dip in the last minute, so I'd better take a break and go eat something. I just had that one empty musing that I had to try to express, however unsoundly. If you start looking at a clock running backward long enough, other clocks will start to look wrong. I know. I have one. It's fun to make your brain work extra hard to do the things you take for granted as automatic.

"No, it isn't," I hear you argue.

"Yes, it IS!" I state emphatically.

Well, we're at an impasse, here. That's it for now. I'm too messed up, both from my gut pain, which has returned, unbidden, to fuck with me, and from the extra weed I just smoked to try to alleviate said offensive detraction from my Saturday recreation. I'm currently experimenting with just how stoned I have to be to either play guitar really well, or not be able to play it at all. Right now, I'm somewhere in the middle.

And I never did get around to the "Life is what you make it" side of the conversation. I'll revisit this debate when my titanium robot head has gotten some rest.