Illusions

Illusions

I sat at the table earlier tonight

looking out the open sliding glass door.

A light outside lined up with the door frame

so that when I leaned a certain way,

it appeared to shine on both sides of the frame.

They call this an optical illusion because

the perception of two lights

when there is really only one depends upon

the way your brain-box processes the information

it receives from your two eyes.

Yet, to you the light appears to split into two beams.

For the same reason they say

rainbows are optical illusions because

they aren't really there and you see them only because

your brain-box processes the refraction of light

off of raindrops in a certain way so there appears

to be a beautiful curve of colors off in the distant sky.

The secret my friends is that everything you see around you

all day long every day, are a series of illusions.

Cars and trucks appear to you to be what they are only because

your brain-box perceives them

to have a certain function and do certain things.

Houses appear to be what they are only because we all have

a certain perception that those rectangular enclosures

exist to shelter us and we all agree upon the illusion

that we owe the bank a great deal of money that we must pay

in order to use the house where we live and we each participate

in the further of illusion of pretending the house is ours.

Our physics teaches us that all matter and energy obey

a strange set of laws they call 'quantum mechanics'

and our perception of these quantum events

as well as the perceptions of our measuring instruments

depend on the interaction between the objects being observed

and the brain-boxes of the folks doing the observing.

So, the entirety of the world around us that we inadvertently

think of as 'real' depends on our perceptions in the same way

as the illusions of rainbows

and two beams shining when there is only one light.

Rainbows, lights shining outside your back door,

your car, the mortgage on your house, and everything else

that seems real to your brain-box

are all daydreams we each idly dream

deep within an great illusion,

floating gently in a grand enigma.

Dewey Dirks