Real Life

Recently I asked myself, Self, why do we so often put quotation marks around the phrase "real life"? And my Self returned an interesting answer.

When we, who have grown up in this country, in this culture, use the phrase "real life," we are actually talking about a fiction.

When we use the phrase "real life," we mean a world in which everything makes sense. A world in which people are consistent. A world in which people act predictably, and in which thoughts and feelings can be understood and figured out logically.

We we say "real life" we mean a world in which everyone's goal is to get as much education as they can handle, get a job that pays as much as possible, or is as prestigious as possible, or preferably both, find a significant other, and settle down to a life of consuming as many of the pleasurable things produced by multinational corporations as our consumer culture can shovel into us.

When we say "real life" we mean a world in which science can explain everything. A world in which God doesn't make sense, but faith in Him is permissible as one of the beautiful, and one of the few acceptable, leaps of non-reason.

When we say "real life" we mean a world in which spiritual reality is no more than a personal construction, a fiction we can take or leave.

When we say "real life" we mean a world in which miracles do not occur.

When we say "real life" we mean a world in which true love does not exist.

When we say "real life" we mean a world without wonder, or mystery, or grace, except what we can create for ourselves.

In the end, anyone living in a world where any of these things are true is living in a world that is just as much a fiction as any Narnia, Naboo or Middle-Earth that ever graced the screen or page.