random ponderings circa 2007

Two men walk along a beach. The first man notices a sea shell and, like so many others he’s seen before, walks past it. The second man has never been to the ocean before. He has spent most of his life hidden behind a pile of papers at the office. Today as he walks along the beach for the first time, he notices the same sea shell as the other man. Instead of walking past it, he picks it up and admires its rough outside and beautiful, abalone colored inside. He decides to take it home as a souvenir of his first experience at the beach. At first he smiles as he walks past it each morning, because it reminds him of the sand he felt between his toes and the smell of the ocean breeze. Eventually he starts to forget it. He walks past it everyday and does not really notice it at all. What was once a symbol of the freedom he felt outside of his stuffy office, has now become just another object lying on a shelf in his home. Our senses constantly change. Every moment we experience something new. Yet most of the time we fail to notice.

Two people look up at the sky and see a cloud. One person sees the shape of a rabbit. The other sees a shape of a house. Which person “sees” correctly? Neither person sees correctly. A cloud is just a cloud - nothing more. Yet when we allow our imagination to see for us, an abstract object such as a cloud can become something else.