Earlier today, Linda H. sent an article from Kaiser Network about bias in reporting of trial results; how articles are written by company employees, signed by trial investigators, and negative results don't get published at all. Most of us have read articles like this.

I thought about all the other deception that fills the world and realized that no one, no one, knows what is real.

Then I recalled a thread in the old Brain Talk titled "What is Real?" by pegleg. I returned the email and relayed this to the pipeliners and it turns out peg had saved her original post - written in 2000. She has the responses too but hasn't located them yet. There were many many responses - it was one of the longest threads ever it seems.

So with a different slant on it, that of the drug industry racket we are consistently becoming aware of, along with the bail outs and the greed, I thought it might be interesting to make a What is Real - 8 years later. But I don't care where it meanders - it's a question that can be applied to anything.

First, tho, I'm going to repost Peg's introduction to the original, which some of you will remember. Then just take it wherever you like.


Date:
27 Nov 2000

Lots has happened recently that made me write this - in keeping with John Lester's "sense of community" in MGH Forums (www.braintalk.org) and PLWP, that he wishes to preserve. Sorry it's so long, but worth "pondering."

From The Velveteen Rabbit: “For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. . . . . The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself. . .

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces . .
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"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day …. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.
But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
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What does this story have to do with my post today? Are cybernet people real? Are they any less real than those people who surround us every day . . . our family?. . . our co-workers?…people in our community? Join me in my quest for “What is real?”
This excerpt causes me to “ponder” the question (may I borrow your word, Bea?). I hear people talk about the “real” world and the “internet” world, as if they are separate entities. They are both very real … in fact, the internet world is powerfully real.
If I receive a telephone call from a bill collector telling me my payment is overdue, do I file it away and say, “It’s OK; it’s not real!” Not only was the person on the line real, but the debt is real, too! Or if I receive a letter, the person on the other end of the return address is as real as you or I. Why should the computer mode of communication be any different?

I receive a lot of email from people I have never met – they know me better than I know them from reading my journal entries. But after correspsonding a time or two, I get to know them . . . and they ARE real! Just as I am real. I would NEVER be ugly to them because I disagreed with something they said. I would be tactfully opinionated, expressing my views. Why do we think the internet gives us permission to be harsh and condescending in our responses to others? The same interpersonal rules apply!

I finally hooked up on ICQ Chat with Jacinta, my newfound friend from Australia. She is a teacher stuggling with advancing PD. We immediately “connected.” We talked about teaching, meds, coping strategies, and last but not least . . . our faith.

“You seem to have a strong faith,” Jacinta typed. Now talk about one-way communication! I was hopeful that my spiritual personality was showing through my journal entries and bouts of mood swings and busyness. And although Jacinta and I come from diverse backgrounds and faiths, I respected her, and vice versa. Jacinta has never been touched by me – I’ve never even heard her voice, but does that make her less real? Her real words of concern, of pain, of questions, and of sincerity make her real.

Just a few days ago, my house was full of people I met as a result of PLWP – only one had I not met previously. Ryan and I had emailed, typed and voice chatted, having met for the first time at the Unity Walk in NYC. I never stopped to ask I he was real – it was a given. I met John in NY, also. But I didn’t “really” know these two guys – for all I knew, they could have been psychopaths! (Seems I’ve heard that word before!) I trusted them because I valued their posts as real – coming from real people.

It was my first time to meet Sandy (of PLWP Parkie Porch), but we had chatted and corresponded. There was never a loss of what to say or do when we all met in person. We now end our chats and emails on a stronger note. “I love you,” Sandy said on the telephone letting me know that she had arrived safely home. And I return the closing, in a real sense of the word.

What makes for a real relationship? It’s not built overnight, for certain. But relationships built over the internet are strong. For we focus on the content of what people say and not how they look. Love makes you real, as our little story so vividly illustrates. Are you treating the person on the other end of your chat as real? … with real problems and needs … and real words to share … from the heart? I hope today’s post reminds us to treat others like we want to be treated … with love.


And while the Boy was asleep, dreaming of the seaside, the little Rabbit lay among the old picture-books in the corner behind the fowl-house, and he felt very lonely. The sack had been left untied, and so by wriggling a bit he was able to get his head through the opening and look out. He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him. . . He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden -- how happy they were -- and a great sadness came over him. He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other … and … the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real. He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground, a mysterious flower, not at all like any that grew in the garden. . . It was so beautiful that the little Rabbit forgot to cry, and just lay there watching it. And presently the blossom opened, and out of it there stepped a fairy.

. . . And she came close to the little Rabbit and gathered him up in her arms and kissed him on his velveteen nose that was all damp from crying.

. . . "I am the nursery magic Fairy," she said. "I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out, and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real."

"Wasn't I Real before?" asked the little Rabbit.

"You were Real to the Boy," the Fairy said, "because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one."

And she held the little Rabbit close in her arms and flew with him into the wood.

Thank you, John, for the inspiration!
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And thank you Peg! Back to the future - 2008 - and many of us are still here, new location but still friends. Peg was proven right about friendship in cyberland being very real. But what is real in the world that we can count on? What is truth?

paula