How Individuals Can Know What Is Real - Essay Example

How individuals can know what is real O’Brien and Stout discuss various ways in which an individual constructs his or her world. Such a construction is far from simple or straightforward, however, and all the two essays imply that the nature of reality is elusive and perhaps impossible to ever fully know. The paper will rely on the evidence from O’Brien’s and Stout’s essays to support the argument that there are several ways in which individuals can “know” what is real. With the earth’s creation, many extraordinary things have occurred masking the most noted impacts of nature. This is as a result of the development of the human brain. Human beings are creatures with the most developed brains. This makes them be able to discern what is real and what is not real or virtual. However, one of the most noted predicament that is faced by humans is how they can determine what is real. O’Brien’s and Stout’s stories provide support the arguments of how people know what is real. Reality is defined by Slater (535) as state of things as they exist in their natural environment, other than as they might be imagined. In addition, reality comprises of everything that has been and is, if it comprehensible or observable. In order to establish what is real and virtual, you need to have good morals. The absence of good morals makes you to be unable to establish what needs to be done so as to come with a true response. O’Brien (269) asserts that a war story that is considered as true is never morally appealing. It also does not instruct, encourage virtue or suggest model of developing proper human behaviour, as well as restraining men from performing things that they have always done. On the other hand, Stout was able to point out that some of the responses that were given by the therapy patients were not true. Some of these responses were as a result of psychological trauma. The authors try to portray that a person needs to discern what it real in the real life. O‘Brien shows to us that a true war story is actually not a moral story, and you can actually establish whether it is made up of evil or obscenity and evil. He argues that as a result of Rat’s response to the sister’s non-response, “The dumb cooze never writes back” (O’Brien, 275).You can now tell that this is a true war story. The reader is made to understand the real consequences of war. When Curt and Rat were playing under a tree while tossing a smoke grenade in the sunlight, they were not aware of the real dangers of a smoke grenade. Therefore, when Curt accidentally stepped on a landmine during the play it killed him. O’Brien argues that although it was not the sunlight that killed Curt, that is what it looked like, and, therefore, that is what occurred. Therefore, a person can know what is real by being affected the real effects of the issue at hand. For instance, one can be wary of signs and symptoms of a headache if he/she has ever been affected by the headache. This will make a person to seek for medication if the disease signs manifest. This means that the person is aware of the real dangers of headache. Similarly, O’Brien and Stout portray figures in their stories that learnt form the acts that were done by their colleagues. When O’Brien explicitly says that war is hell, but the truth is what actually “makes the stomach to believe (OBrien, 277),” for example, Rat Kiley’s image torturing a buffalo since he cannot bear emotions about Lemon’s death in Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story.” The image of the suffering Viet Cong buffalo that had refused to die is a far vivid testament to war compared to a hollow cry of “war is hell.” An individual can also have knowledge of what is through visual analysis. Many people find it hard to either discard or believe that what they have seen is real. Believing what we see as true is part and parcel of everyday life. O’Brien found out that people believed his story since he was the one who was on the war front in order to come up with his real arguments. On the hand, Stout used her professional prowess to point out that what people see is considered as real since it happened in real time. Another way in which an individual can know what is real is by being analytical and figurative. This creates a clear distinction between fact and fiction. O’Brien blurs the distinction between fact and fiction. As a result, it quite hard to determine if or not any given event in the stories truly occurred to O’Brien. However, the author intentionally heightens this impossibility when his characters contradict themselves various times in the story collection, thus rendering the truth of any statement suspect. On the other hand, Stout (381) describes herself as clinical instructor who is also very analytical in her opinions. She was able to point out there various ways of people saying suspected truth especially if faced with psychological trauma. Both O’Brien and Stout are of the opinion that the utilisation of simple and succinct language can enable one to discern between reality and fiction. O’Brien provides a commentary on storytelling and blurs the divisions between truth and fiction through succinct language, as well as series of paradoxical reversals. The main illustrations are the paragraphs that start and end the chapter. Contrarily, Stout also uses simple language that will enable the people to determine what is real and fiction in the story. For instance, in jargon-free prose Stout writes that, “Julia’s knowledge of her life, both past and present” (Stout, 393) meaning that since Julia knew her past and present life makes her to have knowledge of what is real. The past memories can disrupt the present thus affecting your sanity to know what is real. Dissociation is considered as a mechanism that is geared to stimulate an individual to enter into a state of detachment from the real world. In this case, the person is usually totally separated from his/her her thought memories and processes. Clinical psychologist and author of ‘When I woke up Tuesday Morning, It was Friday” explains her view of the importance of an individual knowing what is real and what it not real through dissociation. However, both O’Brien and Stout argue that dissociation is a very harmful experience for certain individuals because it affects the ability of a person to be psychologically present. As a consequence, this gives them a limited perception of reality. In the modern day, disassociation has significantly separated us from knowing what is real. Most of the people have a thought of themselves by means of pursuing false dreams, illusion, forming unsuitable relationships, and working at for inappropriate firms. This masks our knowledge of realizing the truth and reality. Devoid of the compass of reality knowledge, we generally lead ideal lives. This inability to know the reality may be as result of trauma (Stout, 382). Consequently, by living in ideological lifestyles makes us susceptible to various distractions that can enter into our lives without our knowledge. Stout mentions in her article a female figure named Julia who refuses to come to reality that she had injured her leg against the corner of a low shelf. When going to bed, she thinks, “Well, now, I onder how I did that” (Stout 389). The essays by both argue that human beings find it hard to establish what is real. O’Brien suggests that, in some instances, a war story can actually not be believed since numerous unbearable parts are true, despite the fact that some of the normal parts are not true. O’Brien also says that “[A] true story can not be made general or abstract (O’Brien, 212). For instance, he rolls out the death of Curt Lemon in a few and brief vignettes. On the other hand, Stout pointed out that the new found knowledge of dissociation shows that to differentiate the real from the unreal; we need conquer our limitations to thinking. This means that the brains can actually help you to establish the real and the unreal things in the community. We need also to take into consideration the various experiences that people have undergone when making decisions on establishing what is real. Slater (533) argues that our realities are often subjected to change basing on the exerted realties of others. In the story by O’Brien, Rat was able to learn of the war realties through the death of death of Curt Lemon. This is because, “The old rules are no longer binding, while the old truths no longer true” (561). When looking real things, you may encounter a lot of ambiguous things. O’Brien asserts that although war is hell, it has also several other contradictory things. He provides an explanation of the mysterious feeling being alive following a fire-fright. He is also in agreement with the story said by Sanders about the men who heard things in the jungle. O’Brien says, “War is ambiguous” (O’Brien, 277). Stout, on the other hand, noted the ambiguity brought about the therapy patients. Human being can succeed if they put into practice the development of ideas and thoughts that are true. An individual can actually know what is real through reading and vision. This information is commonly stored in the brain. Therefore, the brain is a very crucial facet in allowing an individual to establish what it right and wrong. In that perspective, reality is often contrasted with what is in the minds and dreams, what is imaginary, what is fictional, and what is false, as well as what is abstract. But it quite easy to note that an individual can know reality through vision since it does not entail a lot of memory. Therefore, having knowledge on reality is very essential to our lives since it regarded as the core facet for a better life. Every individual needs to make an effort in order to develop it. These efforts will benefit both the individual and the society at large. In that respect, there can be no genuine, lasting self-improvement without having a true knowledge of who you are. To the most possible extent, after waking up from the dissociative state, the society may realize its wrongs and try to make them right. Works Cited OBrien, Tim. "How to Tell a True War Story." in the The Things they Carried. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. 273-278. Slater, Don. (2002). "Social Relationships and Identity On-line and Off-line". In Leah, Sonia, Lievrouw, and Livingstone. Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs. Sage Publications Inc. pp. 533–543. Stout, Martha. 1990. “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday” in The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness, New York: Penguin Books, p.381-399.2002. Read More