Since the time I saw my first R-rated movie (I believe it was Attack of the Killer Clowns from Outer Space) the topic of the real has pretty much been on my mind in one way or another. The idea of alien clowns wrapping victims in cotton candy cocoons was just terrifying enough that suddenly I had to deal with alternate visions of the world. In one, I had to look under cars as I walked past, for fear of being turned into a giant carnival treat. In the other, there would be operating a new condition on life, a suspension of disbelief in which attacking clowns would perhaps arrive from Barnum & Bailey, not from a meteorite. I had to make decisions about whether the clowns I knew to be real would/could sport popcorn shooting guns and have an insatiable thirst for human blood; I had to choose what was real.
While an 8 year old having a mild existential crisis seems to be fodder for some British comedy on Public Broadcasting, still important decisions had to be made, revelations to be had. If we cannot trust all that we see, how do we determine what we do hold as real? What is the difference between a low budget horror spoof and the things that I see whenever I open my eyes?
I saw it on TV. Yes, I’ve seen a lot on TV that is real. I’ve seen the news, I watched sports and news before, if I can’t believe them, then why shouldn’t I wanna go bust some big red nose in the name of justice*?
But those clowns look awfully fake. True, but when have clowns ever looked real? And seriously, anyone who has come upon a 45 year old clown knows that once that garb is donned, I would be reticent to say that they look any sort of real. Seriously, I’ve seen more realistic cartoons than some people. And has anyone actually watched one of the kingdom’s slower animals (I’m thinking especially obese turtles, but other creatures work)? All I know is, I’ve seen smoother motion from those little heathens populating the It’s a Small World ride at Disney World. Well then, what the f*%k?
Luckily for my young self, it’s safe to say that I quickly forgot any notions of the goofy becoming the murderous in the name of a Brian Jaques book (incidentally, he had just released Mossflower, the second in a killer Redwall series). As time passes however, the question once again arises, now clothed in so many different guises and appearing so often that not even my dreams are immune. On the up-side it has made lucid dreaming possible (the recognition and denial of a particular reality), yet the Neo-esque abilities are little return on such a time consuming investment.
Making the question seem even more suspiciously like a bowl of molasses (that’s right, dense, sticky and brown) are all of the implications of the real that the years between then and now have been kind enough to add. Real doesn’t just mean “do I have to look out for every guy with big shoes and a red nose” anymore, instead I find it lurking in interactions every minute of every day. I’m pretty well equipped to deal with the question as I had asked it in my youth by not bothering to ask it at all: if killer clowns do come for me, I’ll deal with it then. Besides, of all the blood thirsty savages out there, there are many worse ways to go out, if the reality that is 24 has taught us anything. No, the problem now is a little harder to swallow, for now the question involves the reality of the intangibles of reality.
Outside of the ivory tower, the issue has become a question of fact sorting. In all of the things that I see, which should I hold as true? How good is my system of seeing what is actually going on? What ever shall I do with two competing theories that describe the same situation in such radically different ways? They say that intelligence the is ability to hold two competing ideas simultaneously, but that still doesn’t answer what is real. A real mess, still.
Before the intervention comes to get me off the pipe, bear with me. The best way to characterize my quarter century on this earth (as of midnight, that is) has been colorful, to say the least. I regret nothing, yet I wonder at the wildly fluctuating reality it is that I perceive. It’s been everything from shame to Shangri-la, from God herself taking away and returning my psychedelics to losing my tongue only in presence of women who inspire me, with stops along the way for all that sits in between, running under paradigms of the real that would fight to the death if allowed in the same general vicinity. Now I sit, in the current inculcation of things, with a quarter century of history playing on a loop in the style of This is Your Life, except I don’t get Ralph Edwards and his soothing tones, just snippets of moments, so close yet completely out of reach, like half a chorus stuck in your head of a song you barely know.
So what spews forth from the stew that is 25 years on the simmer? A few things, the most infuriating and liberating of which is understanding that the impossibility of such a reduction is itself the answer to the question. By being unable to play Where’s the Real? I cannot help but see that there is no real with which to play the game. But this just raises further questions: I perceive reality, but if I cannot point to it, where is it? And what of my inner perceptions, the ones that ask me to make value judgments, to discern from an uninterrupted consciousness smoke and mirror and understanding?
Since there is no guide to such questions, the only thing really left to do is impose my will as an answer, for if I don’t someone else is going to do it for me, which is even more unpalatable that the unanswered question. I say that there is no real reality; all that we perceive as such is a world which neatly reflects our own inner demons and demonstrations. The choice is ours. The information we take in is processed by what is going on in our heads at that time and nothing further. Why else is everyone so kind when we are happy, yet so mean when our head pounds? Because we make them so.
So after apologies for the rusty and hackneyed words and ideas (the fingers and mind are awakening from months of disuse) I climb upon the soap box one last time before I can rent fast cars in preparation for the mid-life crisis, a call to all those who hope to fill their minds with more than the ways in which the world mistreats them: In the absence of a reality that we can point to, a reality that includes morals and values, success and failure, a reality more full than objects pointed to without concept of judgment, we must fill in the lines of this paint-by-number reality with our own passions, dreams, desires and judgments. Thus reality is a purely, purely subjective matter. As such the choice is ours and ours alone as to what reality we wish to live in. All of the hurt, all of the pain, all of the negativity, the truisms and pedantry, the emotion, the power, the passion, all of these facets of reality are defined only by the mind which operates within the world. Greatest good and greatest evil are demarcated by the same baseless rationalizations, and often applicable to diametrically apposed arguments. Although I do not believe in solipsism, I believe we should behave solipsistically, as though our mind was the only one on which the rules of the world are based. As we are ultimately able to choose what world we live in, I say we fight for the Beautiful above all else, for as creatures of such fragile composition and infinite ability we are at the will of only ourselves and physical forces, either one having the power to end our time in this collective dream we call the real world. To know that each of us is a steward of an entire (personal) universe, let us not think descriptively, as we think it is, but prescriptively, how we think in ought to be. To wit, “The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side has a majority against the universe. If he does not represent the present state, he represents the future state. If he does not represent what we are, he represents what we ought to be.” – Frederick Douglas
Cheers.
*For those who are interested yet uninformed, the only way to actually dead a killer clown from outer space is to pop it nose. Keep in mind that killer clowns come in many more sizes than regular clowns, and the main characters go through some pretty heavy stuff to pop the especially large ones.
