- Is It Sunrise or Sunset
The other day I was watching Jo paint. I’m not sure I can remember what the whole painting was, she usually does murals and I watch a portion at a time.
The portion I was watching her paint was a sunrise. It got me to thinking and I asked her something.
“Jo, if you are doing a painting like this and there are no outside clues, how can someone tell if it’s the sun rising or the sun setting?”
She paused a minute, looked at me with that look I’m used to getting when I ask wondrous and strange questions and said something profound, “I don’t know”.
I guess it’s just a matter of perception. Depends on what experiences and history the person viewing the painting brings to it.
We’re all kind of like that. A revelation I’ve learned over the past few years is:
“No one reacts to reality, we only react to our perception of reality”.
Now sometimes our perception is pretty close to reality, but other times it’s a good jump between the now. Regardless, it’s still just our perception that we react to — and not reality. Don’t believe me, well, let’s think about a couple of good examples from everyday life.
Who is going to make the better President? Obama? McCain? Right now the polls are evenly split. That means that half of the registered voters have the perception that McCain will be better, and half have the perception that Obama will be better. Which one would actually be the best? We really have no way of knowing, but on November 6th, about 50% of the voters will wake up and be wring. They voted based on their perception…and not reality.
How about something as mudane as a sunset or sunrise? Our perception tells us whether it’s setting or rising. The reality is different…the world is turning and creates the perception.
See what I mean?
Oh yah, by the way, the picture with this blog entry is the sun SETTING over the farm called Koinonia.
