So I was running home, fearing that I'd forget this revelation, this clear distinction.
Like Leonard Shelby's shaking a Polaroid into gray, or the messenger from "Life,
Univ, & Every" who forgets the explanation as he's running back to his people.  I 
feel like the truth in my head is something fragile, and will fade with the passing 
of time.  But it was a false worry, and I've managed to write it down (all of it I
think)...


There can be a part of you that is the heroic knight, ready to lay down
your life for what you love.

But there is another part of you that believes in no principal, that 
loves nothing external, and instead only loves what seems to be
immediately real: the pleasant sensations that a self can obtain.  

And keep in mind the distinction between what SEEMS to be real, and 
what IS real.  The essence of this paper is the comparison between
reality and fantasy, truth and non-truth.

Faith, quite simply is hints of the truth, the elusive parts which 
reality does not let us easily test out.

Faith is like the yellow median lines that glow before your headlamps.
On the horizon, you see the distant city, but how do you know these median lines
lead you there?  It looks like these median lines are pointing to that target, 
but there is a tremendous sea of darkness between the target and the headlamp's
glow.  You just keep following the lines, and hope they lead you to the target.

Fantasy is borne out of a kind of despair when looking at that dark gulf.  
Fantasy is frustration in the difficulty of believing in your hope's attainability.

Leonard seemed heroic.  A part of him, no doubt, is in love with this concept.  

	(L=Leonard, N=Natalie, T=Teddy)

	N: "But Leonard, even if you do catch this guy, you're not going
	    to remember."

	L: "My wife deserves vengeance.  Doesn't make any difference whether I 
	    remember it.  Just because there are things I forget doesn't make 
	    my actions meaningless.  The world doesn't disappear when you 
	    close your eyes, does it?."

And his words are perfectly sincere.  Latter, its reinforced again.

	T: "Enjoy the moment while you still can.  What difference does it make 
	    whether its your guy or not?"

	L: "It makes ALL the difference."

Leonard says it with such conviction.  So we believe him.  We think that
he understands with perfect clarity the purpose of his life (which really is
the purpose of anyone's life); that your actions have meaning in the real 
world.  And that this meaning is separate from your own ability to understand
it, feel it, or even remember it.

But this film noir hits a revelation point with such a subtle line...

	T: "So you lie to yourself to be happy.  There's nothing wrong with 
	   that.  We all do it."

Slowly the secret unravels.  We learn that Leonard's love of the heroic concept 
may NOT be based on the reality of his actions at all.  

	T: "You don't want the truth.  You make up you're own truth.
            Like you're police file, it was complete when I gave it to you.
            Who took out the 12 pages?"

	L: "You probably."

	T: "No, see it was you."

	L: "Why would I do that?"

	T: "To create a puzzle you could never solve."

And then it becomes clear.  Leonard's condition makes the self-lie so easy.  
In order to escape the unpleasantness of life's reality, Leonard deceives himself.
To Leonard, the cost might have been a bit of guilt and emptiness, but that would 
last only a few minutes.  The inevitable forgetfulness would wash it away.

	L: "I'm not a killer.  I'm just someone who wanted to make things right.

	    ...

	    I have to believe in a world outside my own mind.  
	    I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, 
	    even if I can't remember them.  

	    I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there.  
	    Do I believe the world's still there?  Is it still out there?

	    ...

	    Yeah.

	    We all need mirrors to remind ourselves of who we are.  
	    I'm no different."

This monologue is one of the most breath-taking contradictions I've ever seen
on the silver screen.  It left me stunned.  By its starkness, it has a way of 
making the truth crystal clear.

Leonard never admits what he has done by setting up his own mirrors, pointing 
them to only what he wanted to see.  Leonard does not admit the crucial break 
he's made from his original statements that "reality is all that matters".  
His actions contradict this only too clearly.  Its the PERCEPTION of reality 
that's more important to him then reality itself.  The false mirrors are there, 
to distract his attention away from what IS real.

Most of us don't abandon reality because it has a way of always coming back
to us whether we want it to or not.  But we have all been tempted to abandon
reality, if only for a short moment.  Why do we do this?  I ask this, with 
all the true human empathy I possibly can, because I know its something
I have done too.  I do not mean the question to be rhetorical, though perhaps
it seems to have such a simple/straight-forward answer: we should NEVER abandon 
reality.  IT IS what matters, even when our sense don't capture it.  To exchange 
reality for a meaningless fantasy...would be empty.  But the question still stands 
unanswered, for we have ALL abandoned reality for some duration.  There MUST be 
a reason for our actions.  

Are fantasy and imagination the same parts of our brains?  Imagination is 
the exploration of what is possible, making suppositions of reality's rules 
that we have not experienced yet.  Imagination is altogether useful.  In
fact, it might be THE highest virtue of the human mind, as it is our
tool through which we achieve understanding of reality.

Fantasy seems like the same tool, however it clearly leads to a different 
end.  Fantasy seems to be the denial of what reality has shown us.  Instead 
of the imagination of the probable, it deviates into the highly improbable, not 
as a means of rational discovery, but as means to escape reality's constraints.

Let me put it another way.  Every observant adult inevitably comes to the 
conclusion that it is bad to lie.  There are cases were lying seems to have 
very real and direct benefits, but these benefits are ALWAYS outweighed by 
other costs, some of which may not be obvious at first.  But once an adult 
discovers them, they forego the temptations of ever lying, even in situations 
when the short-term benefits seem awfully large.  We become "principled" and 
stick with our conviction that lying never would be a net-gain.

Is fantasy then...the self lie?  Deceiving ourselves?  Would it make any sense
if, after learning that lies to others never produces a net gain, that we'd
still think its okay/beneficial-in-some-cases to lie to ourselves?

Experience might continually show us that there is in fact A reality,
that continues to exist whether we want it to or not.  But that hasn't
stopped the age-old philosophy of Relativism from appearing in the human
concious again and again.  Its a philosophy that asks; Is reality really 
real?  Or is only our perception of it real? 

Leonard succumbs to this philosophy, perhaps because his handicap makes 
it so easy to.  But each of us, even without Leonard's ability to forget, 
are we tempted to believe that there is no world outside of our own eyes?



====================================================================

Truth is a concept completely absent in Relativism, because it has no 
reality.  Truth is the standard of reality.  And without a reality, there
would be no truth, there would only be relativism.


Take any example of what we label as "contradictions", dual propositions of 
which only one can be true.

Ayn Rand stated it succinctly...

	Contradictions do not exist.  Whenever you think you are facing a 
	contradiction, check your premises.  You will find that one of them 
	is wrong.

Perhaps to have been perfectly clear, her 1st sentence should have read

	"Contradictions do not exist IN REALITY"

That is, Ayn Rand believed there IS a reality, and it contained no 
contradictions.  But if they do not exist in reality, then where do they 
exist?  They must exist somewhere if we have a word for it.

Contradictions can exist in our head.  Our thinking can form opinions 
that do not match reality.  Some of our opinions can contradiction other
opinions that we are holding in the same head.  Amazingly enough, our head
doesn't pop (quite fortunately).  In fact, our head seems capable of
holding lots of contradictions.  Of course we'd like to get them resolved.
But it appears we need time and effort to do that.  This is discovery.
This is the ugly-middle stage of learning, when our suppositions aren't
completely matching, when they are contradicting.  The hope is that in
observing the real thing, we'll shall see some new aspect of its nature,
revealing the truth about it and wiping clean our contradicts.

========================================================================




Let me state the obvious - my human perspective is limited, so I do not get 
the luxury of absolute proof in anything.  In fact, all I get is the dim 
headlamp.  From that, I must decide what is true.

The dim headlamp has given me hints that there is in fact a reality.  This 
so-called reality seems to continually exist, even if I'm not observing it.
In fact, it seems to exist without any regarded to my awareness of it at all.
IN FACT, it would appear that my thoughts do not effect reality one iota!  
(I cannot levitate a book with my mind.  I cannot make it snow today through
the mere act of DESIRING it to be so.  Nor can anyone else.)

But the dim headlamp has not stopped there, it has given me one other 
important hint: that this reality...may in fact...have a purpose.  That is 
only because my dim headlamp stumbled on something very subtle, something I 
would have never expected, and something I at first could not explain.  What 
that something was I'll leave for another paper, but it was enough to give 
me this idea: the reality - which my dim headlamps had discovered long ago, 
and a reality which I of course had always known was never something I had 
created - WAS created by someone, someone who had an idea of their own.


I even think I have a good guess at what that idea is, but let me start with
only one small part of that idea.  It is this: do not deny reality.

"Sin" is an old word.  For many people today its an empty word (but then I 
guess all ages have had their share of people who viewed this word as 
meaningless).  These people may agree that humans really can make a mess of
things, and they may even go so far as to say that humans can do "bad" things,
maybe even all the way to the word "evil".  But they'll stop at the word sin.
To them, that word represents a non-real concept, one of those foolish notions 
people can sometimes get into their head; a concept that doesn't match anything 
in reality.  If that be the case, if the concept behind the word is dead, 
then word itself would be pointless.  The sooner we remove it from our 
vocabularly, the less confused we'll be.


But let me revive the word for a moment.  Let me re-explain the concept 
behind that word, so that we might evaluate if its real or not.  I can
define "sin" like this: it is anything contrary to that idea that was in 
the head of the person who created the world.

Now I have only put forth one minor part of that idea.  It will be enough 
for us to chew on.  Let us state it clearly now: denying reality is a sin.


There is a recurrent theme of darkness and light in the Bible, and what
is widely considered to be the most loving passage of the whole Bible is
followed by what may be the most profound...


   John 3:19
	This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men
	loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.


Do men love the darkness because they would prefer to be blind?  Is 
there, in our hearts, an inclination to deny truth - to our own selves?

   John 3:21
	But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light; 
	so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done 
	has been done through God.



Is stepping into the fantasy asking for a temporary release from reality?  
Isn't the request from the beginning a contradiction?  Can our mind really 
LEAVE this reality?  I mean, after all, wouldn't that just be...pretending?

Ah ha "pretending".  Here we are back again to "imagination".  The ability 
of the mind to simulate what is not actually occuring right now.  Surely 
it must be one of our greatest gifts.  But then is it simultaneously our curse?  

Religion's claim of "all men have sinned" seems totally unfair.  How could 
a God create us and say that, by being born, we are sinners - that we'll 
inevitably contribute, in a small part or large, to evil?  Now if we look at 
human history, its quite obviously has some evil deeds, things done by man 
out of his apparent free will that were incredibly destructive.  So it 
seems some credit is due to this religious perspective for at least 
stating the rather obvious: evil does exist.  Man does appear to be capable 
of great folly.  But then is this folly to be considered "evil"?  

More to the point: how can our free will, if it was God's creation, be 
against God's original idea?  How could God create something that he 
dislikes?  Yet the story of Noah and Sodom/Gomorrah seem to suggest that 
indeed our free will can lead us to a place that God abhors.  Then 
are "free will" is quite free.  In fact, it is ABSOLUTELY free.  Created 
by God or not, our will is our own and no other can lay claim to it 
without our consent.  Not even God.

what exactly IS this "free will"?  A law of our own?  We are created "in 
the likeness of God".  Now recall our gift/curse: imagination, 
our mind's unfettered ability to guess at reality's nature.  This is our 
free will.  Its a tool that can either be used to discover reality's 
nature, in the formation of hypothesizes that would latter have to be 
tested against experience.  Or it can be used to deny reality's nature 
in the form of fictitious experience.

This makes for a rather simple definition of righteousness and evil:
accept reality, or deny it.  That is the option given to all humans.

For anyone who has seen, standing side-by-side, the comparison of two 
individuals who made the different choice, the goodness of one over the
other might seem obvious.  The pathetic druggie compared to a 
straight-laced yuppie, we can all loudly proclaim the wisdom of 
accepting reality instead of trying to escape it.

But is the choice, for each of us, really going to be that simple
in life?  Does not the yuppie get tempted at times to fudge
a few facts on his resume, thinking this might lead to a better 
job - and more happiness?  Won't the chance arrive at the yuppies
doorstep one day, to fall into great folly, despite his current reliance 
on the conventional wisdom society has preached into his head?  Should 
we praise society for keeping the man on the straight and narrow?  Or 
does the man have virtues of his own, that will protect him from folly 
when society is no longer there to make a suggestion: this way or that.

If we think "accepting reality" is such an easy choice, then perhaps
we have not been tested yet, and our reliance on the advice of others might
be the true reason on our well-being, more then any virtue of our own.
But one cannot rely on others forever.  One cannot be a coward, and remain
in the shadow of other men.  One must venture into the NEW eventually, 
were conventions do not help.

That is where we learn what "accepting reality" actually means.  Take 
my headlamp/distant-city example.  To accept reality will require us 
to accept the sea of darkness, at least as a temporary distance we 
must travel across without the certainty over what direction takes 
us past it.  Reality only gives us hints, and we must be satisfied 
at these hints.  In fact we must be happy at their illumination, 
even if that light seems meager when compared to the whole picture.  
We are accepting that we are born in darkness.  Our hope is the steps 
our feet take can lead us to illumination.  But to achieve illumination, 
we must not deny reality, even when it gets ugly or unpleasant.

It seems we have only two options available to us:
	- Believe that God is good, that the reality he made is
	  good, and that it will reveal its nature to those that
	  work to discover it.
	- Try to construct your own picture, craft your own small
	  version of what you'd like reality to be, and then hope
	  the bubble doesn't burst.  People in this boat inevitably
	  grow to loathe reality, because it incessently threatens
	  to creep back into their realm of experience.  They begin
	  to long for more strength and power, to fight back reality, 
	  to craft a stronger bubble that will more effectively 
	  keep reality out.  By steps, the unavoidable end of this 
	  path is revealed: the desire to be God.  Nothing short 
	  of the absolute power to create reality anew could satisfy 
	  the person who has choosen this option.

This is the distinction between courage and cowardice.  It is the 
distinction between hope and despair.  Anyone who starts hitting the 
bottle, to dull the hurtful senses, knows what its like to despair.  
Anyone who quickens their steps down the road when it gets harder knows 
what its like to hope.