Is This For Real?

Some kids grow up believing Santa Claus exists. At some point in their lives they wake up to the horror that he doesn't. What about the other way around? Some of us grow up "knowing" Santa doesn't exist. What if we find out one day that he does? Ouch!

Those of us who don't believe in Santa also don't believe in some other things. Vampires. Unidentified Flying Objects. Pirates. Etcetera. At different variations, there's the athiests, the fanatics and so on. No matter what we may believe in or not, we all enjoy fairy tales and all sorts of fictitious stories. 

After spending about 30 years of not believing in the make-believe fantastical creatures that supposedly roam this world and firm in the knowledge that aliens are figments of imagination of science fiction writers, you begin to nod in agreement when you come across arguments that the people who claim such things exist are merely hallucinating. Or lying, of course! For such people, talk of UFO sightings and vampire attacks are rubbish.

When I first heard about pirates attacking ships in the waters at Somali, I was not sure whether I should believe it. Pirates? Really? I looked at my room-mate and said, "So, is it real? Pirates are for real?" Fortunately for me, she is a non-believer too and was equally surprised. Atleast, I didn't feel like I was asking a dumb question. Ever hear of the story of the sane king who had to drink water that drove people mad because all his subjects were and they thought he was off the rocker? I absolutely love Jack Sparrow and the Pirates Of The Caribbean, like many others. But... but... pirates? They're real? I thought they were a thing of the past - so long ago that it could almost be mythical. Like mythology. I wonder if a bunch of lazy buggers got inspired by JS and decided to start a new career. Anyway, there's a lot of noise in the news, the US army are killing them by the  dozen, people are dying (so says the media), so we might as well believe it. 

Move over terrorists, the pirates are here!

I couldn't help wonder if it will be vampires next. Somebody in the US saying they now have vampires. I mean, you do hear about tribes eating human beings - yummy too, supposedly. How long before somebody runs out screaming they've seen a vampire or been bitten by one or some such? 

I was still digesting the pirates stories and being sarcastic about vampires when the next one hits me. UFO sightings and alien kidnappings! No kidding! Seriously? Supposedly they're being sighted pretty often in US, Australia and some parts of Europe these days. The last I heard, they were being sighted for a while now (yeah yeah, I read a rather cynical/comical write-up about something along those lines, when in school) but it's happening often enough to alarm people now. What the beep? It's incredulous to hear news reports of pilots and air traffic control executives talk passionately about UFOs they saw and so-called kidnappings. A couple of nights ago, one of the news channels showed pictures where you could clearly (it wasn't clear to me, duh) see the kidnappings. Whoa! Stop right there! Who was kidnapped, do we know? They aren't even sure it's a human that was "kidnapped by an alien" or whether it was even a kidnapping. 

Now, that's going a bit far, don't you think? I'm not ready to believe this one yet. Alien attacks? Are you nuts? What do you think they're after? Seriously, those things really exist? 

Moving on. I was watching Bones on the telly last night. If you didn't know, it's one of those cop shows where Bones (specialist in bones, bravo) & her partner Booth solve murder cases. Shit like that. In this one, they were investigating the murder of a wedding planner and are talking to the bride who had visited the planner on the day of the murder. When they tell her that they found her DNA at the site, she squeals, "Really? These things exist? DNA and stuff?"

It sounded stupid, believe me. I bet the script was written for it to look like that. Stupid, pretty girl getting married. Bones & Booth are shocked she can be that dumb. It made me wonder about all the is-this-for-real-does-this-really-exist questions I've been asking of late. I am a non-believer and am not embarrassed that I do not believe in some of the ethereal stuff. I wonder if I would sound as stupid as the chick on the show, if I kept saying that everyday. The stuff in the media isn't helping, you know.

This made me think. We think it's dumb because we believe in the DNA. When I say 'believe', I mean we know it exists. Why is that? Have we seen it or felt it? We simply believe it because some scientist(s) claim to have seen it, gave us the diagrams we see in our text books, our teachers told us first and then we read about it, and reasons like that. The truth is that most of us know DNA as well as we know vampires. Not less not more. Yet we believe in the former and laugh off the latter. What decides what we want to believe? Clearly not experiencing it ourselves. We are willing to believe some stuff, yet we laugh at others who believe what we think are unreal.  

Do we disbelieve in things when somebody or the other raises the first question? As if, we are scared to doubt it until we know that someone else will back us up too. 

Say what you will... the world may be divided by country borders, races, religion, etc but one thing won't change. Irrespective of whether we like it or not, we are all homo sapiens. We are all alike on some level. We come from the same prototype. So much for wars and attacks, eh?