Philosophy #1: What goes around comes around.




Philosophy #2: Shit happens.


 

The view from my prayer window.

A charming and instructive aspect of the view out of my prayer window is that the view changes with differences in time of day and light aspect. There is a view, a near hillside in the middle distance; it is reasonably constant: it changes in its exact particulars only insofar as the trees and shrubbery grow over the years. Yes, there was one instance in which a landowner logged off some salable timber, and that made a seeming drastic alteration, but over the years, imperceptibly what appeared to be scars simply healed over and were replaced with new growth. But that is not what I am talking about. 

What catches my attention is how the time of day and the light can alter what I see and how I see it. In other words, I can look out the same window and see completely different aspects of my environment. On days when there is some haze, or smoke, or mist, or low ground-hugging clouds scudding ragged through the trees it is possible to see very well the terrain features, the folds and dips of the ground. Earlier in the summer mornings, with the light slanting from the left, some vegetation gets illuminated and other features are obscured which with the passage of the sun across the sky are in their turn hidden or revealed. Curiously, on starkly clear days when the sun is bright, much is obscured which on cloudy days is revealed in the contrast provided by atmospheric conditions; likewise, color and hue contrasts seem to be highlighted not by the bright sunshine but by its suppression—and different hues and colors will stand out depending upon whether the cloud cover is high and relatively thin, or lowering and thousands of feet thick, or if the air is filled with moisture, or drizzle, or rain… the view is constantly changing; what you see today is not what you see tomorrow and paradox is the rule: nothing is as it seems.

And that is just looking out one window.

Life is like that, I think. When I think I perceive in clarity, I am not; when I think things are obscured, I can see contrasts and thus more clearly. When the light is bright upon the earth, contrasts and features and colors are hidden; in the dimness of a cloudy day, or in the Japanese-y mists, contrasts and even colors are revealed.

When I think I am seeing something clearly, I am not; when I think my world is obscured is when clarity comes.

Paradox is the rule except when it is not.