I know y'all are getting tired of me losing my mind over the presidential election. I'm going to try to avoid any politically-charged talk in this post.
Billy Collins does Wittgenstein . . .
Lakeside
by: Billy Collins
it was one of the more spectacular,
a cluster of bright stars
appearing to move across the night sky
as if on a secret mission
while, of course, it was the low clouds
that were doing the moving,
scattered over my head by a wind from the east.
And as hard as I looked
I could not get the stars to budge again.
It was like the curious figure
of the duck/rabbit –
even paradoxical Wittgenstein
could not find his way back to the rabbit
once he had beheld the bill of the duck.
But which was which?
Were the stars the rabbit
and the blown clouds the duck?
or the other way around?
You’re being ridiculous,
I said to myself,
on the walk back to the house
but then the correct answer struck me
not like a bolt of lightning,
but more like a heavy bolt of cloth.
What Collins is referring to is a picture--depending how you look at it, it could be a rabbit or a duck. Using this picture as an example, the philosopher Wittgenstein said that objects just don't appear to our senses (it's not that direct). Rather, objects are "seen as" something. So, the same picture can be perceived as a rabbit or the bill of a duck, depending on who's looking at it.
This evening, my wife and I decorated our front porch for Christmas. It was my wife's turn to pick the theme, and she chose blue Christmas. Now, I know you all know the classic Christmas song "Blue Christmas" as sung by Elvis Presley. Some people walking by our house, seeing the blue lights and blue ornaments, will immediately think of Elvis's yuletide tune. And that's okay.
Other people passing by our house, spying the predominance of blue illumination and garland and balls, may think it's a form of political protest. (There's not even a hint of red--or orange--anywhere on our porch.) And that's okay, too.
It's all in the eye of the beholder. Rabbit/Elvis or duck/democracy.
Saint Marty doesn't care which you see.
❤️
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