What's the 'real' colour of Snow White's apple?

“Real” ... What is “real”? How do you understand “real” in your headspace? Is it different to your heart-space? Is it influenced at all by a soul-space, or faith-space?

In a meal-time conversation I was involved in a few weeks back, I was shocked to hear a gent say that: "everything we see is real". Something irked me deeply. I think that my Journalism and Theatrical background, which all involve the manipulation of presenting a story, have shown me that agenda manipulates reality to its own angle; and this experiential knowing was shouting inside me – no, not everything we see is ‘real’.

What triggered the discussion was a brown wood ornament of an apple with a real silver stem and leaf, and I commented that the apple reminded of Snow White’s apple. The young children at the table were horrified that I could associate the apple with Snow White, or connect the two at all, because Snow White’s apple is "definitely red". To which I replied, that no, this apple was my Snow White’s apple and I was allowed to have my opinions and associations. They got very defensive and then into loud, almost attack mode to make me realise that I couldn’t believe anything they believed was ‘wrong’ … background reel for every war on the planet… #justtyping.

Their father supported them that the red apple was ‘real’… that’s when I was quite floored… we then brought the discussion to his opinion that there was a fundamental problem in our conversation due to our definitely different definitions of ‘real’… background reel of many human conversations that get
out of proportion #justtyping

So… clearly this is still sitting with me… the mulling over it outcome: I see 'real' as something I can tangibly engage with, i.e.: 3 or more of my 5 senses (maybe only 5 for ‘real real’?) need to be stimulated. ‘Real’ can be touched, smelt, seen, heard... The ‘tasted’ option would be at one’s own risk
and discretion, but possible. Thus, only on a screen (visual and audio), does not 'real' make for me... yes, it is fodder for my imagination, but I don’t stand with what my imagination creates as being ‘real’, until I have brought it to life in the realm of the 5 senses. This would mean that the thing on the
screen is ‘not real’, but a manipulated reality of someone I don’t knows creation that I am observing. Yet, my sitting there – the seat, the people there (or not), the consumables, the experience in the tangible world where all my sense are used is ‘real’. Live Theatre creates an interesting dynamic, however, because there are living 5D humans on the stage… not the 2/3/4D of a cinema.

And… Yes, all ‘real’ity is also manipulated to how we interpret everything – hence some people like chocolate ice cream and some like vanilla, that’s a manipulation by the senses to create a lived reality, preference, story. This in itself – as a manipulation – would lead to there being nothing that is firm ‘reality’ as all is interpreted by the senses; and this is the converse, the antithesis, of ‘everything one sees is real’.

I am guessing that the gent saw "real" as anything the mind engages with through sight... ergo an apple on TV must be 'real' for whoever is watching... only if they choose to believe it... what are we choosing to believe?

Once again, my personal experience takes my mind to a philosophy that I have applied often (hmmm… can I trust that thought then, in line with this discussion…?): I don't like giving my mind that much leeway to 'believe' a ‘reality’ based purely on what a screen (green screens? AI?) presents, and I embrace the philosophy of "...don't believe everything you think..." … the audio and visual of a horror film will give me nightmares as my mind will believe what is ‘not real’ because that cerebral part of me knows no different – like a computer or cell phone – it just accepts whatever it receives…

Knowing that the brain itself is not a source of wisdom for me; it’s merely a database of all I have been exposed to in my life; thus, makes it something that needs a higher power to steer it into a helpful direction. If left to roam, then the brain can feed on billions of sensory moments received over the decades of my life. What it creates into thoughts are thus, literally, 'figments of my imagination' which are not 'real' but a rewired composition of what was only real once, for an unrepeatable moment of my story. No-one else will ever have experienced those moments as I did, so the ‘real’ of my life would be limited to me and my ability to express it, or to try and recreate it in some way to share it.

The conversation then turned to have one of the children express the thought, against my argument of ‘directors create the red apple, it’s their choice, not a necessary reality’, that there are things on earth that are not created… This took on a whole other conversation that her Dad chatted through
her with – she was adamant that nature always has been and wasn’t created… He proposed that the only non-created thing we could know of is God. It was quite a heated discussion.

For me, their discussion became an insight into how differently minds work to ‘create’ their realities and beliefs, and then the steadfast strength used to defend those thoughts and beliefs.

Here, I flipped the focus to go back to the children’s argument that Snow White's apple HAD to be red because the movie they watched showed them it was... They were the shocked ones when the adults Googled "Snow White's apple" and an endless variety of images in numerous colours popped up in the stream...

It’s all information and we are processing information all the time. A child's brain accepts everything it receives as the 'absolute truth'; and they have made the unconscious decision of trusting that the creators (of what they see through a screen, or what teachers teach, and/ what parents tell them)
are the all-knowing sources of the information that becomes their 'reality', their 'truth'... We need a whole new education system to combat the blatant acceptance of everything that is ‘seen’ in the 21^st century. Is it real? Is it true? Is it harmful or helpful? How do we choose? A conversation with a tangibly present teacher I would then argue is far more necessary to learn interpretation skills than anything 'online', if the screen productions become defined as a 'not real' experience.

How careful we need to be with these minds that accept anything and believe it...

For me, in discussions like this, I guess it gets tricky to define ‘real’ when it comes to faith and beliefs - if one has not felt, touched, heard or seen what is to be believed, I would think that it may become an 'unbelievable' thing...

So, my faith is real, but by the definition of only seeing for something to be real, then it may mean that my faith can't be ‘real’... 

This makes me circle back to the mystery and the miracle, the non-human, out-of-this-world space of faith that, for me anyway, is real for I have felt it beyond the cerebral, beyond a screen, and in the touch of the wind that I cannot see but feel beyond a doubt. Still, the wind is more than one sense - if
it's in a colour run then it's all 5 ;)

Our meal-time conversation left a lot to ponder on… how did the thinking happen? Because we were at the table, talking to each other. I hope screens aren’t stealing the precious moments of connecting over a table, face-to-face, learning about each other’s thoughts, beliefs, views of the world, how to
openly argue them, learn, and so much more in your home.

So, what’s your definition of “real”?

I pondered what the Bible mentions with regards to our minds and the compositions therein:

Proverbs 28:26 (ESV): "Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered".

Proverbs 3:5 (NIV): "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding".

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV): "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways... As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts".

2 Corinthians 10:5 (NKJV): "...bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ".