What is Real?

The condition of post-modernity is losing identity, blurring boundaries, in other word: no one fixed 'self'. I wasn't sure about this paper before but week after week I get more sense of it and it's interesting and exciting. Half brain thinks it's insane because doesn't make any sense but half brain is sinking in to the concept. And it got me thinking indeed it's a crazy world.

People could be anything they want. I can make a profile page saying that I'm a President of Bikini Republic, some people might think "she's crazy, that's not true, that isn't real". Well, it's real enough for me. That's the concept I've created and we've been living in a concept created by society, we accept that, that's why we think it's real.

Come to that sense, I start to realize, what is real when you can see and think that everything is real? Really? When people say "reality is too painful, let's imagine something beautiful and great", which one is real and which one it isn't? 'What's in mind' is not always not real, it can be actual and real or it is actually real.

One time, I watched Dr. Phil (excuse me but I couldn't find anything else on TV), the case was about this one girl faking her pregnancy to her family. From the family point of view, she can't be pregnant and she made the story up. She said that she's been raped, got pregnant then had miscarriage. From the girl's side, that's the story, it's real. She made continuous action through social media, creating her own 'friend', talking back and forth with 'her friend'. The family try to make her realize that she's now sinking in her own reality. The family thinks that she cannot differentiate between the real life and her 'real life'. The family thinks, she creates all this stuff to make her life more excited and that she creates this 'friend' as the person she wants to be. A girl with two kids, great family life and good living. But she insists that that's her 'friend' and she's real.

From that story, we might see and think that she's basically crazy but when someone has diluted that one self and starts living their 'reality', that's the real life they have. It might not real for the society but it's real enough for the person.

 

One of the movie that reminds me of the condition of post-modernity is Black Swan. Lots of movies picture greatly on post-modernity life, such as Total Recall, Mulholland Drive, Being John Malkovich, Scanner Darkly and so on. And unfortunately, believe it or not, that's the world we live in now.

#fascinated

-vc-