‘Things are not at all what they ‘really’ are but only what they seem to be.’

Confusing?

What we have here is the intersection between ‘reality’ – a.k.a. ‘absolute’ truth, and knowledge – a.k.a. logos or relative truth.

‘Things’, ‘existence’ and ‘reality’ are concepts.
Developed by us, conscious people, through the use of ‘logos’ and starting from two implicit premises.
That there must be something outside our consciousness – both the individual and collective ones.
And that our perceptions do have at least some correspondence in that ‘outside’.

By adding layers and layers of logos, collectively known as ‘culture’, upon our initial perceptions we’ve actually built an alternative reality. The one we call ‘civilization’.

The ‘thing’ being that this second reality is just as ‘outside’ our grasp as the original one was. And continues to be.
Because of our own consciousness, which both separates and connects us to ‘reality’.

What we are left with are our ‘perceptions’.
And with our understanding, for those who had reached it, that ‘perceptions’ are ‘real’ only in the sense that they do correspond to some segments of ‘reality’ but they are not necessarily similar to them.

Our concepts, not matter how gingerly refined and thoroughly revised, are only representations of ‘reality’.
‘Real’, in their own right: developing them produced, and continues to, its own set of consequences – a.k.a. ‘civilization’.
The downside being that some of those concepts have begotten rather unpleasant consequences.

‘Moral depravation’, ‘pollution’, ‘corruption’…

It doesn’t really matter how many of these consequences are the result of ‘direct’ action or unintended spin offs.

What matters is that we have to understand there will always be a distance between what we believe at some point and the object of our belief. That that distance may have enormous consequences. And that our only chance to avoid those consequences is transparency.

Heidegger was speaking about ‘unhiddenness’.
The limited nature of both our consciousness and rationality produces the distance between our concepts and their ‘real’ correspondents.
Only by openly, and respectfully, sharing what we know about ‘things’ we’ll be able to shorten that distance.
Otherwise, the limited nature of the reality we live in – the planet itself, will no longer be able to accommodate the hiatus between our concepts and the only reality we have at our disposal.