Jumbo Reality

by Goldwin Emerson

Some of the most interesting and happiest times of my life have been when I have watched my own children and grandchildren struggle with new ideas. Often, it was a matter of them trying to incorporate new or slightly different thoughts and experiences into the concepts which they already had. This process involved decisions about what was real and what was imaginary.

Recently, my three-year-old granddaughter, Kendra, and I went to see the statue of a giant elephant in St. Thomas, Ontario. This elephant, called Jumbo, was a circus performer, who on September 15, 1885 ran away from the circus seeking his own view of reality and unfortunately was killed by a train locomotive as he was running wildly down the tracks in search of freedom.

Kendra, who lives in St. Thomas, had heard this sad story of Jumbo's fate, and conceptually she knew that what we were seeing was simply a likeness, a concrete statue, not a real live elephant. When I asked her if she would like to have her picture taken with Jumbo, she happily agreed.

So I hoisted Kendra up onto the four-foot-high concrete platform on which the statue stood and I told her that I needed to get further away in order to get all of the huge Jumbo statue into my picture. Her anxiety increased as I walked across the street in order to take the picture. She began to wonder what she should do if the statue should suddenly come to life. Should she run across the street to where I was, or should she run to our car for protection? And could she get down off the high platform by herself? Of course, I assured her of what she already knew. Jumbo was only a statue and statues are not living. Nonetheless, Kendra found some comfort in repeating what I had just told her. She wanted to be sure that she understood me correctly. Later, her anxiety decreased as we got into our car and drove safely away from Jumbo's statue. When we arrived home, she recounted her experience with Jumbo to her mother and grandmother in happy tones, and with some sense of achievement. She wanted these two important people to know that she had stood up on that high platform alone with Jumbo to have her picture taken.

I tell this story because much of our own lives, both as children and as adults, is devoted to trying to distinguish the differences between what is real and what is imaginary or fanciful. This is particularly true for most humanists who try to make sense out of life. We are not content to simply accept everything that we see or are told even though it may sound comforting and pleasant.

Yet there is much about our modern customs and society which is designed to divert our attention away from reality and into the realm of fantasy. At an early stage many children have some anxiety about ghosts, witches, bogeymen, and other unreal characters which are thought up by adults who sometimes have embellished these frightening images with violence and unpredictability. A profusion of such characters can be seen on television, in children's movies, and occasionally in children's books. Even the more benign images of fairies, elves, Santa Claus, tooth fairies, and the talking animal characters of the Lion King, or dinosaurs on the loose, can increase a child's difficulties in separating the real from the imaginary in their lives. 2

For this reason children can benefit from being read to or accompanied by caring parents and from family members helping them to choose constructive stories and experiences that produce a clearer distinction between the real and the imaginary.

As adults, we manage a delicate balance between reality and fantasy. While we want to pursue truth through logic, reason, rationality and critical thinking, there are benefits to be gained by experiencing the imaginative, the creative, the hopeful, and the joyful side of human life.

Sometimes we purposely invent ways of taking ourselves out of the reality of daily experiences. We may seek distractions in movies, theatre, comedy, art, fashionable clothes, or music which can sweep us away from work, pain, worry, or disappointment. Of course, if these experiences are chosen with care they can bring us in closer touch with reality. But it is important, even while enjoying these pleasures, to keep in mind that in some instances they are not the stuff of everyday life. Though they can represent life as it could be in a more perfect world, and they involve a lot of hard work and understanding of reality in their preparation, the finished product is often meant to be more entertaining than the basic realities behind much of our lives. And it is for this reason that we choose to be entertained from time to time by experiences that can divert us, if not from reality, at least from the monotony of the workaday world. However, there are some diversions that are downright harmful. These are the ones which mask the distinctions between the real and the unreal so cleverly that one can be caught up in their grip so firmly that there is little chance of escaping. Just as a fish is inescapably lured by its attraction to a baited hook, humans, too, can be attracted into paths of self-destruction.

Many people, and I am one of them, enjoy the excitement of a gambling casino. Often there are free drinks, money flows liberally from the hands of the hopeful into an impersonal slot machine that is designed to win out in the end, provided one remains hopeful long enough to continue to invest in one's flight of fancy and dreams. It is true that from time to time, and often for a very short period of time at that, the gambler may win. When the gambler wins, lights flash and bells clang to let everyone know that one of their fellow gamblers has "won." But the gamblers should know the reality is that in the long run she and he will lose everything unless they are prepared to set limits on their unrealistic hopes. In the end, the machine that takes their money does not care whether or not it was their grocery money, their rent, or money set aside for their clothing, or for paying their utility bills.

Drinking alcohol is a bit like gambling. I, like many of you, enjoy a drink. When the ambience is right, drinking seems to set the tone for friendship, recreation, and loosened tongues. For a short time, alcohol makes for fewer worries and introduces a touch of unreality. For a while we don't feel that we need to, or even want to, look at reality. But, like the gambler, if we are not prepared to set limits, the truth is that in the long run we will end up poor, sick, or dead and the producers and purveyors of alcohol will not care. Of course there are drugs other than alcohol that are just as addicting. These range from the nicotine in cigarettes to hard street drugs, and without limits they, too, can be addictive and deadly.

But now I want to lighten the tone a little and talk about some less deadly diversions and distractions from reality. Many people, the majority of them men, accept sports as part of the real world. High salaries of professional athletes of today surpass our wildest estimates of twenty years ago. It is not uncommon for top athletes to sign contracts for millions of dollars per year. Their loyal fans are willing to pay hundreds of hard-earned dollars to watch them "play" at soccer, hockey, and baseball, or compete in boxing or wrestling. Their fans will not make as much money in a whole lifetime as these sports idols will make in one year. There is a touch of unreality about the fascination with sports. Perhaps a closer version of real sports exists when young children, boys and girls together, are playing a game of softball in the schoolyard or a game of soccer at a neighbourhood park. In the long run, deciding which professional team wins the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup will not be of any more importance than which group of children wins the game at the local park. In the light of eternity, one game is just as important, or should I say, just as unimportant as the other, and both can lay equal claim to reality.

Occasionally, but not very often I have dined at fine restaurants but more frequently I can be found eating at McDonald's or Tim Horton's. Both styles of restaurants have an equal claim on importance and on reality. And both kinds of restaurants pale in comparison when one considers the plight of one seventh of the world's population, which according to a recent report from Doctors Without Borders, are literally starving to death today. I need hardly remind you that while being hungry is unpleasant the reality of starving is that it is deadly. To those who are starving to death their starvation is very immediate and very real and dining in a fine restaurant is an illusion.

Recently I attended the Detroit Auto Show. For Americans and Canadians automobiles are the stuff of dreams. According to a recent report from Reality Check:the Canadian Review of Well Being, cars are the single biggest expenditure of Canadians. Over one hundred twenty-five billion dollars annually are spent in Canada to buy automobiles and keep them running. At Detroit, families, including children, were allowed to touch and even sit behind the wheel of "top of the line" cars such as Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Cadillacs, and the high powered Hummers in the style of Arnold Schwarzenegger. By their appearance and language I judged that many were working class people who, for a brief time, were living a dream that would never come true, unless.…..unless they purchased a lucky lottery ticket. But that is the subject of yet another dream and another piece of unreality.

In politics, distinctions between the real and the unreal are unclear, and often the confusions are intentional. President Bush frequently talks of war. He is, as he says, a "wartime President." He is a true friend of the military industrial complex. The military has destroyed much of the infrastructures of Iraq and Afghanistan, but more than that, it has taken the lives of well over 20,000 people. But Bush's rationale is that it had to be done because two towers and several thousand Americans died in New York on September eleventh in 2001. President Bush now admits there was no connection between that horrendous act and the people of Iraq. For Bush and his ilk, the reality is that we have always had war and we always will have war.

However, there is another view of reality which says that the greatest leaders in the world were those who brought peace in times of international conflicts. They were leaders who respected international agreements and who sought peaceful resolutions and considered war only as the very last and poorest option. These two different views of reality, one of winning the war by military force and unilateral action and the other view of winning the peace by international co-operation through peace-keeping organizations such as a strong United Nations, compete in the minds of American citizens as to which can make the greater claim on reality. It is not easy in this case for citizens to distinguish between which view represents reality and which is imaginary. As is often the case, the matter of determining which view is closer to reality requires factual knowledge, consideration of the issue from both sides, and a willingness to temporarily suspend judgement while assessing the situation. In this process we are largely dependent on a fair and unbiased media in distinguishing reality from fantasy. In the case of Americans, an overly zealous patriotism often hinders both the media and individuals in sorting out truth from wishful thinking.

So, in the end, thoughtful and caring people are left with the task of separating reality from unreality. The reality of the physical world can be measured and, for the most part, seen and experienced. Even when the physical world is not evident to our senses, scientists are good at figuring out ways to detect and measure it and to predict its behaviour and its results.

There is, however, another large and important area of life and of basic reality that does not lend itself so readily to physical measurement. This part of reality has more to do with positive attitudes, compassion, concern for others, respect for our environment and for promoting the peaceful resolution of human conflicts. While science, and in particular the social sciences, can be helpful in these areas, humanist philosophy is quite properly interested in, and involved with, the same important issues. Humanism can assist us in separating the real from the imaginary in the following ways: Humanism begins with the idea that as humans we are capable of improving our own lives. By caring and thoughtfulness, by critical thinking, by a healthy skepticism about what is real and true and what is not, we can make progress in solving our problems. Such challenges as war, poverty, overpopulation, pollution, and starvation are in the first analysis, each human-made, and if they are to be solved the solutions will of necessity be human made as well. In keeping with humanism, the solutions will embody a healthy respect for truth, ethics and compassion towards our fellow human beings and towards other life forms with which we share this planet.

As I reflect upon my earlier comments about Kendra and the huge statue of Jumbo the elephant, I am impressed by the awareness that her concerns for her well-being are not very different from those of adults. Jumbo represents her wonderment at new ideas that are over-powering, magnificent, unpredictable, mysterious, or all of these. I feel privileged to have had a small part in helping her distinguish between the real and the imaginary without destroying her sense of awe and excitement, and I am pleased that I had this opportunity to practice one of the principles of humanism, albeit at an elementary level.