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Hidden Realities
Which one is correct?
There is a conundrum at the heart of which lies the human love of story.
We have often thought of ourselves in various ways: naked apes, the highest of the animals, something categorically distinct from animals and much higher, the pinnacle of God’s creation, homo sapiens, “wise man” or “man who knows”. But one effective way to think of humanity is as the animal who loves a good story.
A story, to be interesting, needs various elements. You know the standard list: plot, setting, characters, point of view, style, theme, conflict.
One of the most popular themes is the conflict between good and evil. Man is also the animal who knows about good and evil. It is no accident that a great many stories are, in some way, about good and evil.
There is no reason why a story cannot focus on more than one theme. Another that gets a lot of play, often in combination with good vs. evil, is the idea of a hidden reality that underlies the normal, perceptible world. Those truly “in the know” are aware of that reality, while the rest of us simply muddle along with our humdrum lives.
An ever-popular hidden reality theme is that the universe is populated by untold numbers of intelligent species, many of which have sent representatives to Earth. They may even — gasp — be among us today!
