There it was, a viscous blob of limber elasticity capable only of thought and some kind of irregular nebulous form of motion, perceiving the world yet barely influencing it. It spent its time floundering around the park, observing the quotidian routines of the proletarians in their mundane and monotonous undertakings, yet it felt drawn with interest and was intrigued to know more of the lives of these hoi polloi. It desired to experience the very essence of their actuality, what reality felt like to them.

In the nearby forest, it sometimes spent its time examining the patterns of the birds and wondering how they were so dissimilar in comparison with the lives of those in society. The daily goings-on of each were in contrast yet similar, each one working for the survival of its family and the continuation of its lifestyle, yet their concerns for the day were not alike. Each was real, yet it did not know if either was capable of independent thought and emotion, though it seemed that they were; he could not be certain.

He wanted to know what urged them to buy food, go to jobs and wear clothes, or what urged the birds to care for their young; he could not understand why they thought these things necessary. He would often travel through the city, looking at the buildings and houses alike, wondering why they cared so much to have a place which they can be sheltered from all external stimuli, why the development and use of these constructed dwellings was of importance and uniformly so.

Why did it not feel prompted to do such things as was itself not also Real? Perhaps it was not ‘Real’, not possessing certain qualities that define a being as such. For all one knows, reality could be a gradient in which an individual falls into certain shades of realism, itself being at the lighter end, comprising of some but not all of the colours of verisimilitude. Perchance reality is a rank one achieves when they conform, to a reasonable extent, to the patterns of the world; the patterns of their kind.

But what of itself? It had no kind, no measure of normality in which to test its condition or state of being. How is it to know what one considers acceptable, reasonable; what is authentic? How was it to know whether it knows what it thinks it knows, or sees what it thinks it sees? Perceptions are strange things. They can remain constant for what seems like forever and then change within an instant, without you even knowing why you thought the way you did.

They live with the torment of constant fears and doubts, not knowing how their life would alter if their routines were to change, maybe positive, maybe negative, but what is good and bad but points of view, which also change, adjusted constantly by the remodelling of society, never quite clear, quite real, always an illusion yet driving society like someone pursuing the end of a rainbow. Always going, never there.

However, the case may be that one cannot understand the way of the humans or the way of the birds without truly living as one. I do not have any duties, obligations, any sense of purpose which these people have, similar to that of the creatures. Perhaps I am just that, an animal. Yet I think, contemplate, use reason and logic like that of a man. So it could be believed that I am both and neither, a man and an animal. A lesser being capable of thought but not emotion.

Maybe that’s it, what defines a Real one. Emotion. But maybe I can feel emotion, I simply don’t know what it feels like. Perhaps being Real is just based on a definition and, as is the same with all definitions, they differ from person to person. ‘Person to person’. Hmmm. To think of all the types of people, the short, tall, big, small people all fated to possess their own unique characteristics, going about their lives in different ways, feeling different things, thinking different things. Maybe I am a person, also with my own set of characteristics exclusive to me. Maybe I am Real, according to me.

But one cannot be certain, there is no one true interpretation of this life and all its mysteries. Why do they do what they do, but why do I want to know? I do not know what it means to be real, nor do I know why I want to know, or why I think I want to know what I think I want to know. For what separates knowledge from thought. Nothing, as all knowledge is not what we know, but what we think we know and we can never know if, what we think we know is what we know or just what we perceive to be true.

From what I think I see, all I am is a viscous blob of limber elasticity capable only of thought and some kind of irregular nebulous form of motion, perceiving the world yet barely influencing it, spending my time floundering around the park, observing the quotidian routines of the proletarians in their mundane and monotonous undertakings.