Reality

Reality is a mongrel dog.

Viewed through the eyes of billions it is veracity at its most intriguing.

I am a reader and sometimes I read a book only to find the movie a gross disappointment. That makes me wonder if everyone else saw the book the way this director saw it, or if I just read the book differently. I'll admit that I have a vivid imagination. Sometimes I don't know if I saw the movie or not until I see the shorts and realize I have not.

Books have always offered me a way to live vicariously through experiences and in places I will never have a chance, and maybe don't want the chance, to do in real life. The forests are Hansel and Gretaly dark in the right places while the sunlight dapples others in charmingly Disney-ish, heart-stopping moments. The main characters look like people I know and the way they resolve things often calms my fears of losing control.

I am a people watcher. Whether in the school library, my apartment parking lot, out shopping, or on the television, I am looking at the way people move and talk and respond to each other. I wonder if people are consciously cultivating the looks on their faces, or if they are some inherited, or learned trait? I wonder if the bravado and ennui are genuine; if the sophistication is carefully calculated; if the fear is eternal?

When I am out walking and hear the jingle of a dog's tags, or a distant bark, my mind instantly and automatically goes to packs of wolves in dark forests, big teeth and feral eyes, but I know others who are filled with warm fuzzy pictures of puppies and wagging tails.

Reality. It comes to us through filters so diverse and intricately combined that it is surprising we live as peacefully together as we do.