Tag Archives: reality

Multiverse theory proved!

Posted on by under Generic Rant, Original writing

There’s tremendous controversy in scientific circles about “multiverse theory”, the contention that our universe is just one of many, possibly an infinite number of parallel or alternate universes. At first I was skeptical about this theory. While it makes for countless compelling science fiction plots, it seemed too far-fetched to be acceptable as scientific truth.

As a result of extensive and meticulous observation, my views have changed. It’s now obvious to me that there are indeed many, perhaps billions of parallel universes. Let me encourage you to use standard empirical methods to discover for yourself the undeniable truth that surrounds you every day.

Next time you are in heavy highway traffic, look around. The guy weaving in and out of lanes, endangering everyone around him? He’s clearly in his own universe. What other explanation could there be? His actions make no sense in this universe: He’s getting virtually nowhere and he’s merely aggravating an already miserable traffic situation. There is no other reason to drive so idiotically. There’s no connection with anyone else’s reality. He lives in a parallel, or maybe slightly skewed, universe.

More evidence? Take note of the following people:

  • The person with 15 items in the supermarket 6-or-less express lane.
  • The woman trying to stow a piece of luggage the size of North Dakota into a plane’s already cramped overhead luggage rack while the aisle fills with people waiting to get to their seats.
  • The fully able moron parked in a handicapped space right up against a van’s wheelchair entrance.
  • Donald Trump.
  • The kid yapping on his cell phone in the movie theater.
  • The motorcyclist revving his illegal exhaust system on a quiet street in the middle of the night.
  • The person at the front of a long line of customers, taking 15 minutes to decide what kind of cruller to have with a double latte.
  • The driver who considers the use of blinkers to be leaking information to the enemy.

All these people live in their own universes where they are the only inhabitants. They have no connection to or awareness of the reality other people occupy. It’s their universe, their laws, their morality, their “truth”, and no one is going to come from any other universe to interfere with their actions or disturb their complacency with meaningless concepts such as facts, civility, or selflessness.

Now that’s science.

Obsoleting Reality

Posted on by under Generic Rant, Movies

These are not good days for reality. They haven’t been for some time, but the old boy’s decline seems to be hastening. From all indications, people don’t have a lot of use for reality.

As an entity, reality has been, as we were wont to say in the software world, deprecated. That means it’s still out there somewhere, but you’re discouraged from using it. It’s just as well. It’s getting as hard to recognize as it is scarce.

The reality (there’s that word again) of the situation has been driven home for me most recently with the suddenly huge and profitable enterprise known as fantasy football. Fantasy sports have been around for a while, mostly played out among friends and co-workers. The lunatic fringe started getting involved. That was bad enough. Then it became Big Business, giving us all the gift of legalized gambling in all 50 states.

fantasylandThe fantasy versions of sports have surpassed their reality counterparts in importance to many people. At least it’s called “fantasy” because it isn’t “real”. (Would that TV showed the same discretion, q.v. below.) Unfortunately, some people take it to extremes and trade reality in for fantasy. They forget the actual sport – or worse, interfere with the actual sport! – in favor of the fantasy version. Read “Fantasyland” by Sam Walker for a glimpse at the insanity of it all in baseball.

Worse is when we slap the word “reality” on things that are anything but. It should come as a surprise to exactly no one that I’m talking about so-called reality TV. And by reality I mean fantasy. How did that happen? In this case, reality refers to something that is surreal, absurd, contrived, and a slew of other qualities that are in reality (I mean it this time) descriptive of things such as fiction, fantasy, and general nonsense.

That situation isn’t all that distinct from the average based-on-fact movie today. Maybe in days of yore movies that were about people or things that actually existed were factual. There’s no such pretense these days. Movies simply aren’t telling true stories anymore. In order to squeeze into the save-the-cat mold or whatever other generic screenwriting template is in vogue, films are dramatized often to the point of camouflaging the truth beyond recognition. You see the disclaimers at the end of the ridiculously long credits:

Although this movie is based on actual events that may or may not have happened, none of the characters are real. The settings and dialogue have been fabricated for dramatic effect. Organizations depicted herein are not and have never been and most likely never will be real. The story has been twisted like a Möbius strip in order to maximize income for the producers. However, it is true that there once was a guy.

Movies use a variety of descriptions that, if analyzed correctly, reveal how far they’ve drifted from historical veracity. Here’s a sample:

  • a true story – This means what it says: It’s a true story. You will never see this claim.
  • based on a true story – There was indeed a story once. The movie is a fictional retelling of that story.
  • based on actual events – There were some events. One or two might have accidentally ended up in the movie.
  • inspired by actual events – Forget about it. Any connection to reality is purely coincidental and probably a mistake. You could say this about “E.T.” It could have been inspired by the actual event of a kid who ate Reese’s Pieces and faked being sick so he could stay home from school.

Reality. headstone

I miss it.

The Day I Finished

Posted on by under About writing

The last three posts (“The Night I Woke Up“, parts 1-5) were more of an exercise for me than anything. If learning was the primary purpose – and I believe it was – then it was a successful foray into the unknown. A rewrite is definitely planned, given that I wanted to change things almost immediately after I published each post. That’s the way the process works, after all. Writing live is a treacherous pastime, one that I’ll probably be foolhardy enough try again, hopefully not repeating the same mistakes. I’ll create new mistakes if there’s a next time.

Some people might be disappointed by the ending. Nothing really happened, when all was said and done.

Or did it?

Certainly, one small corner of a boy’s brain was indelibly etched with an unexplained incident. That alone might justify the story. The telling of a story is the revealing of a life. This one revealed a lot about a kid on the cusp of puberty facing the unknown in more ways than a mysterious visitor in the night.

Maybe we’re all so conditioned to the carved-in-stone movie plot template that governs the storylines of virtually every movie showing at the cineplex. Where’s the reversal? The false ending? The save-the-cat moment? The denouement? Sorry. What you read is what you get. That’s why they call it “reality”, as opposed to, say, reality TV, a.k.a. nonsense. In this case, it’s not too far-fetched to say, it is what it is, or rather, it was what it was. I just call’em as I remember’em. Which brings me to…

Perhaps the whole thing is just the creation of an overactive and highly susceptible imagination, passing itself off as memory. Who knows? I honestly don’t. I believe that what I wrote is exactly what happened. If it isn’t, no harm done.

To quote… well, almost everybody: “That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.”