So…

So, I was sitting at Sunday brunch, my granddaughter, Eleanor, asked me, “Are we real people?” She’s a surprisingly insightful kid. I spent 40 years or so sitting alone in little booths writing and talking out loud assuming someone somewhere else was listening, so she obviously believes I have an inherent inroad into insanity. Or…she may be a four-year old, with wonder as yet unsuppressed, who is exposed to an amazingly incomprehensible array of stimuli about the world both palpable and virtual…so ‘real’ is very much a blurry concept. I wish I could say I stood up, stopped the cacophony of chaos in Cracker Barrel and put the question to a Socratic debate, but between the noise of the crowded restaurant, my limited hearing, the lacking fortissimo of a four-year old, and…honestly…the need to consider the question, I had to respond with an eloquent, “Huh?” “Are we real people?” Yeah, the question didn’t go away. Are we real people? She’s four, so it’s funny… Right? Is that really a funny or an insane question? Are we seeing ‘real’ people in our current world? I suppose we could parse it. We could examine and define ‘real.’ We could certainly debate it. Not in person, of course. I’m sure I’m not alone in browsing what claims to be ‘news’ these days and thinking we are collectively far too concerned about knowing far too much about far too many people who have nothing to do with our lives. People who aren’t ‘real.’ They’re an image. A crafted image. It’s certainly easy for me to throw rocks at those created images of ‘real.’ Until I consider the reason they’re not. Yes, they’re not real. They’re reflections. … Yeah, I just assured her, “Yes, we’re real.” We went back to playing that little Cracker Barrel tabletop golf tee game without even attempting to do it right. She’s four. She doesn’t get the game. But she asks great questions.