Life of Pi Essay: Reality: The Worse Story

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not understand when my mom told me I would never see her again. I knew my Grandmother would never leave without coming back. I had a thousand stories about where she was and all of her adventures: she was traveling the world searching for the perfect dress for me or she was with Shirley Temple telling her all about me. No matter how much I wished and believed my stories did not change the reality that she was gone. I was a child who could not cope with the reality and tried to change it. A reality remains the same no matter what stories you entwine with it.

In the real world, reality is pretty awful and stories cannot change that. The world is plagued by terrorism and disease and malnutrition. There are of course positive things which many people use to bury the negative things. Take for example the Holocaust, an appalling event which caused the deaths of over 6 million people. For however horrendous it is there are still people who deny the Holocaust ever happened, who choose to believe an untrue story: that 6 million people were not killed out of pure hatred. It consists of saying that the Holocaust was a fabrication created by Jewish people to induce public sympathy. Even at the time of the Holocaust the reality, similar to Pi’s reality, was so inconceivable that people did not want to believe it; “It was inconceivable that an advanced industrial nation would mobilize its resources to kill millions of peaceful civilians, including women and children, the elderly, and the very young.” (Source) The reality of a situation may take a while to set in, but that does not change the fact that it is the one true story. People may believe other stories, but they are wrong and they do not believe in the reality. Choosing the ‘better story’ does not change the reality. I wish I could believe that 6 million people were not murdered out of pure hatred and all of a sudden it would come true. I wish I could decide that my story would have no terrorism or hatred or suicide or hunger and that would become the reality. The only reason they choose to not believe it is for their own benefit.

You can never choose another story, reality is always there in the back of your mind rolling constantly like a drumbeat. Choosing another story is like putting a bandage over a cut, it still hurts and still remains there, it is just covered, out of sight. Reality is the events as they actually happen, unbiased and unaffected. Perception does not affect reality. Perception is one’s opinion of the reality. Life cannot change because you believe it is different. It changes because you make it and you work to change your reality.