what is real?

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

when I was a child i had no idea that this book was about anything more than a bunch of toys talking to each other. I could only wish that as a 7 and 8 year old my toys could be as cool. I even had my grandmother buy me a rabbit that resembled the velveteen rabbit. however, the older I get the more I realize this is more than a children's book. I read the story again when in college and wondered how I'd never caught on that this book wasn't about being real in a physical sense, but real in the sense that I'm alive and feeling. I'm not a mere machine. Furthermore in the beginning of the story the toys are carefully grouped into classes. Is it possible that every children's book has illusions to this tangled society we live in. I mean hell look at Alice and Wonderland. Anyways the quote above came to mind recently while reading a book which got me to thinking about my own personal experiences and my "real-ness" Real is when someone loves you, not just wanting to play with you, but really loves you. Indeed its true. Yet how many times do we, do I allow myself to be played with to only be tossed aside?

tbc...