Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Seeing 2014 (#5)

For your consideration: an (apparently) tightly sealed box of unknown provenance, straddling and forming an intense juxtaposition of radiant energy and black emptiness.  Or what appears to be a space null and void.

Much is uncertain and contradictory in this geometric construction.

Then this:  what is the composition of the rectangular form?  Wood? Metal? How about heavy paper? Even its fundamental nature is a matter of speculation rather than certainty.

Whence the lighting? Artificial? Or, if natural (then presumably from the Sun), what time of day might it be — early morning?  Late afternoon?

The scale at least seems discernible . . . provided an assumption is made regarding the size of the paired fasteners (screw heads?  Or might they be bolts?  Or neither?) . . . much depends on such assessments.

And this brings us to the nettlesome problem of perspective. Is this a view of an object attached to a wall, or rather an overhead shot of a larger than suspected structure covered with and standing in a field of snow and ice, an Antarctic satellite look?

Ultimately, the deepest mystery is the matter of what this image's subject might contain.  A secret button? Chocolates? A tangle of wires? A body? A manufacturing plant?  A portal to another universe? Perhaps this: nothing.

Or, famously, a cat.

Ergo, a plethora of questions, speculations all, each with the same answer: who knows?

Until the container is actually opened, its content examined, the mystery's reply cannot be determined.  The reality remains inert and unknowable prior to the decision and subsequent act of peering in.

My bet's on the cat.

Such is the nature of many of life's challenges, especially those which demand choices and options be executed. Until one makes manifest an action, any resultant outcome is possible. We delude ourselves that we know picking A will cause B to follow, versus taking C which we forecast would lead us to D.

Ah, my friend, were it that easy. Life has a persistent manner of presenting us paths with forks aplenty, and frequent is the moment when choose we must . . . We may linger in the junction, biding time, yearning for a sudden stroke of prescient clarity that one direction trumps the other. Yet despite our procrastinations (usually fear-based, when we're honest about it), no genuine illumination of the yield of our choice can be found before we indeed forge ahead by opening the box, and thus discovering what is in store as the reward.

After consideration, whether feeble or profoundly plumbed, in the end a choice must be made, an action undertaken . . . and thus a new adventure revealed.  Depending upon where we stand in our journey, mustering this movement often requires a quantum leap.

Courage, dear one, and faith.  All choices are valid, all paths noble, provided one's heart is clear.



Homage à Schrödinger, #9780-7D

© 2014 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.

(click image for larger version)

Details: December 12, 2013, Canon 7D; f/11 @ 1/250 sec; ±0 EV; ISO 320;
Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L II USM @ 70mm

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