Most of us humans are creatures of the day, diurnal, a little-used but useful term. For us diurnal folk, night is mostly for sleeping. Day is for work and almost everything else. As nearly as I can remember, I have never had a single discussion with armadillos. When they don't bother me, I don't bother them.
Of course, that meant that I have missed all the wild, all-night parties held by people we called party animals. In fact, some were so noisy that I was tempted to go discuss their behavior with them.
I like to think that this daytime living was a choice, even though it is probably just a rationalization for something I would have done anyway. I want to believe that I am diurnal because it fits a life-long quest for reality. As much as possible, I want to be surrounded by real things. Most real things abound in bright daylight.
Imitations are mostly forms of deception. I once saw an ad for "genuine faux pearls." I wonder if the advertiser thought no one knew that "faux" was French for "false."
In the morning, outside is a wonderful place to find real things. The sunrise, clouds, flower scents carried on the morning breeze. Birds, even the ugly ones that eat all the rice, are totally authentic. One morning, where I used to live near a lake, I saw an adult bald eagle somehow riding a wind current, perfectly stationary in a reddish-gold sunset. Who could make one of those out of plastic?
Insects of any sort are real. Enjoy the good ones like butterflies, that no one could have invented for us. Endure the ones that think we are food, like mosquitoes. Before you smack them into oblivion, it is useful to recognize that they are real too, not something escaped from a video game.
And everything we see that is green and growing deserves our recognition, even if we then have to mow it.
Toward the end of the day, it becomes much harder to concentrate on what is real, and what is invented, contrived, or misrepresented. Even manners require certain deceptions. The gift we received, the meal we were served, even the occasional social visit, is rarely described as it is perceived. But I only notice things like that as the day runs its course.
The other evening, I hit the wrong TV remote button and got a program I had not seen before. Maybe the program was supposed to be funny. I heard laughter before I hit the mute button. It was a laugh track, canned laughter that is controlled by the producers to show when we are supposed to laugh. And some do.
I got to see people and situations that tried to entertain us, while other people and situations sought to sell things we didn't need. There was no reality here.
Only the people were alive. Everything else was artificial. If enough people watch this kind of program, all our enemies will have to do is wait, and we will do most of the damage to ourselves.
If we are to survive, we must devote ourselves to finding what is real. We could start every day looking for reality, in nature, in genuine people and not actors, and in our choices of food and clothing. By evening we will be enough aware of imitation things that we will seek only those unrealities that visit us as dreams as we are sleeping, what someone called "the theater of the night." That should be enough.
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