-------Illusions

FTLComm - Tisdale - August 24, 2000

The size of the sun, or moon for that matter, when seen comparatively to each of them when high in the sky or close to the horizon continues to be one of those difficult optical illusions. It really is not a bit larger but the frame of reference changes as it sits on the horizon and seems to gather in magnitude proportionately. We do precisely the opposite with various problems we encounter, we can either lesson or increase their apparent relationship with other things as we view them in isolation or in context. People have the unfortunate habit of valuing the things that they encounter in life as they seem them as good or bad without giving the experience time to work its way through their lives. All of this is part of the very fragile hold we all have on reality.

As the sun filters down through the smoke and makes its way down this street (above) the houses and trees that we take for granted and see each day have a new appearance seem altered considerably as we see them here only in profile as dark shadows against an amber sky. When you are faced with what seems like some enormous difficulty or complex situation you really need to alter your view of that scene. Consider it from different angles and under different perspectives to really put the situation into a real perspective. The absolutely best way to get the contours of an important matter is to vocally explain it to someone. As you do that, you will force yourself to define and summaries the various aspects that are important and your composed explanation will be invaluable to you in meeting the challenge that it presents. Tell someone about it and you will be in affect explaining it to yourself.

This pictures lets you see the tumbling shadows of smoke in the atmosphere as it works its way along and the sun's red light darkens the land from the horizon to your feet. This stark imbalance, utter darkness to uncontrolled light is both an extreme but also a sort of harmony. All things are a balance, between existing as functioning reality and trivial confusing items, it is for us to accept that continuum and seek always to identify that which is important and that which at this time is of no applicable influence on the direction of our lives.

In this picture I thought I would attempt to emphasis the foreground and see if it would change the merit of the image and alas the grass and items in the foreground only have significance when seen in relationship to the setting sun, so you are seeing the image, as all on this page, exactly as the camera saw them with no tricky computer modifications to enhance some aspect of the images. Oddly enough showing you the pictures as the camera recorded them is not reality. It is the camera's reality. We after all are humans with complex visual processing, for as we see a scene, either visually or in our mind's eye we really see a composite, a construct of reality from what our brain chooses to compose. Reality, truth and fact are far beyond either our capacity as humans or the simplicity of a camera. The illusions in which we live are the way we have to survive and we cheerfully agree between each other on conventions and accepted versions of what we call reality and truth but these also are merely illusions, shared illusions. At the top of the scale of illusion seekers are the lawyers and scientists who each in their own way try to find or construct accepted illusions that others will accept based on some plausible figments they refer to as "evidence". Though a necessary part of human existence their explanations offer us grand illusions but still illusions.