canals on mars
it began when astronomers saw dark lines going across the planet mars.
percival lowell, one wealthy and vocal astronomer, concluded these lines were too straight to be natural features - and therefore must be canals . . . and canals must be built by intelligent creatures . . . and these intelligent creatures must be rooted in an ancient civilization. in addition, they must be building canals for a reason. for water. for survival.
and if their canals do not work, they will invade our planet in an attempt to gain our rescources instead.
(oops, i just went from one story . . . to another. the second, of course, authored by h.g. wells who knew his was a story. mr. lowell, on the other hand, did not.)
but that's how it goes. we take in limited information - something we see, or something we hear. and from there, our perception and imagination takes over.
what natural story tellers we are! with vivid detail and wild conclusions. and in all we do, we seek patterns - therefore, all evidence that supports our accounting is taken in as fact. and any evidence to the contrary must be a lie, or a cover up.
pundits write political fiction and ascribe conspiracies . . . the churchly write religious fiction and credit God . . . and we write our own personal fiction and invent characters from our every day life. yet like mr. lowell, we all believe ours to be truth.
unfortunately, OUR truth is so seldom THE truth.
next time i begin to build a narrative around some little piece of information . . . next time i begin to weave a story around some little nugget of truth . . . next time my imagination takes off, and my perception threatens reality . . .
i hope you will be so kind as to utter these three words:
canals on mars.
Posted by peg mulqueen at 9/2/2009 7:25 AM 
Categories: life lessons
Tags: life lessons canals on mars seeking not seeing perception as reality
Categories: life lessons
Tags: life lessons canals on mars seeking not seeing perception as reality
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