by Conner Good

Created on: June 29, 2009

A new, abstract artist has just moved into your town. He is having a gallery opening and you are invited.

So you go. You enjoy the pieces mildly, and then find yourself at his masterpiece near the end of his exhibit. The hours are winding down, and now the only people left in the gallery are you, another man or woman, and the artist himself.

The artwork is merely a canvas with thick and bold black and white stripes.

You step forward and say: "I don't get it, it is only a white canvas that you drew black stripes on."

The person beside you says: "No it is not, it is only a black-painted canvas that you drew white stripes on."

Then the artist boldly steps forward and says: "It is neither."

Both of you ask: "Then what is it?"

He smiles proudly, and then says, "It is orange."

Perception changes everything. The way you look at something or interpret it makes it what it is in your mind. It's the same for anyone else, so if they see something different with their perception, you will both disagree on what it is. And when you disagree on what it is, you find yourself and the first crack in the theoretical peace around you. There can't be peace because we all perceive everything differently. The point of the artist's masterpiece is this principle- it is the age-old zebra stripes question:

Are they white with black stripes or are they black with white stripes?

This artist knew that it didn't matter. All that mattered was the principle of perception. He knew people would look at it different ways, and he specifically looked at it a completely unique way. Not to say he is colorblind, but in his head, he saw orange. Orange because of his knowledge of perception.

Now let's look at it on a larger and more universal scale.

Let's use religion as our example. Everyone has different religions and everyone perceives their religions and beliefs different ways. So let us say that religion is an apple. Bear with me, an apple is one of the simplest things I could think of.

So religion is an apple and it is on a pedestal.

There about seven billion plus people in the world. So now we position all of the people in the world, all seven billion, around that apple. Everyone is looking in on that apple.

But everyone isn't looking in from the same place. No- they are positioned all around the apple. Some people are on the west side of the apple looking down. Some people are on the east side looking up. Some people are looking directly down at the apple. For the sake of this example, let us get rid of the pedestal altogether, and now the apple is floating in mid-air. Some people are looking directly up at the apple.

So it can be confirmed that everyone has their own unique perceptions on anything. It would be impossible to agree completely on something when you have different beliefs and exeperiences. Now granted, you can live in harmony with someone who has different beliefs, but not everyone has that ability, and eventually those different beliefs will spread you apart.

So we've come this far to theoretical thinking. If we could get every one of those seven billion people positioned in the same place, they would all see the apple in the same light and perception. With this united perception, comes complete efficiency, knowledge, agreement, and peace.

Perhaps, when you think a deeper way, we would have a complete understanding of what is actually happening in our universe.

But that's just how I see the apple.

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