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Considering his answer didn't have but one centimeter of reasoning, I've never been able to figure out the answer to Descartes' question: how do we know what's real and what isn't? The logical answer would be "our senses." Well, our senses cheat us. They do so through psychoactive substances and unconscious states of mind. Memories can be designed, and if they are already part of our hippocampus, we will perceive them as something that did happen. What I'm trying to say here, is that reality is (informally) what we perceive is true and not what we know is true.

G
At least I know I'm not alone, David Shields is with me. In his memoir Reality Hunger, as he describes it, he says that he's "interested in the generic edge, the boundary between what are roughly called nonfiction and fiction." (191) We can't distinguish those to words that easily. He then says "Art is real. I make it real by putting it into words." (200) This supports my argument because he is saying that basically what is real is what there is evidence of, what is recorded. Just like memory. Just like the truth. When he puts art down into words (art being writing) he is making a statement that even though it may be refuted, it is true. It is true simply by the fact that it's a statement. He said it. It already exists.

This is why we should live our live assuming everything is a lie. Just like this guy.

H

We live not in our lives but in the lives we are told to live in. Wait, but doesn't that mean that those lives are actually our lives...? Don't worry, I'm not disagreeing with Shields; it is tremendously worrying that we are living off and in the popular culture. I'm sorry Camille, I think I'm going to use your aphorism. Wait a second...it's not yours. It's not even Shields' either. Woah. Anyways, "our culture is obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any." (242) As I said, our moments aren't ours. They are High School Musical and E! News' creation. Just for the hell of restating: "The 'ordinary' person's cult of personal celebrity is nurtured by these new models of communication and presentation and representation." (245)

I

"We live in difficult times: art should be difficult (my goal is to make every paragraph as discomforting as possible)." (249) Why do we lives in difficult times? Because what should be difficult (art) is now tremendously easy. For example, in The Intouchables Driss asks Philippe why he buys an such an expensive painting if it is just a red stain. The typical response would be "because it resembles reality and depicts the point society has reached to." Well, a clever way to use Shields aphorism, is by saying that recognition through that kind of art is very easy to achieve. Everyone appreciates simplistic art because it "shows how crude this world is" and all those not-really-deep reviews. Basically, I can draw a line with a marker right now, name it Greed and become famous. These are indeed difficult times. 

We are now, officially, lost. 

Actually that's from Shields but im not citing just 'cause I also came up with it.