Experience and nature

Everything goes as if our experience puts us directly within a world of nature, people, buildings, furniture, and an endless variety of things and places we see and smell and touch, hear and feel, many of which, ultimately, were there long before any human showed up to notice them and, very likely, will still be there long after the last of us is gone.

When a tree falls in a forest it makes a noise, though no one hears. Or so it seems.

And yet, the straight stick looks bent in the water, the green crowns of the backyard maples look black in silhouette against the night sky, the round penny appears elliptical from an angle, the bright point in the sky cannot be the star that blew itself to dust a million years ago, and that waiter in the next room to the right through the mirror you mistake for a door is really off to your left.

And that cane in the corner – is that a duck or a rabbit’s head?

Is that a vase or two people, tête-à-tête?