Seeing the World

For many years I looked at the world and believed nothing existed there for me until I made it. The world as I perceived it was a thing already made, and I was a creator, and until my creations took hold, nothing in the world belonged to me. I did not particularly like this arrangement, but what could I do? Questioning this reality would have been like questioning gravity, and one step off a bridge would answer that question for you in a hurry. No matter, soon what I had planted would grow, and when that happened I would see the beautiful and friendly world I frequently imagined. And so I planted and waited and planted and waited, but I perceived no growth. The world spun on indifferently, changing with every season yet remaining dependably immune to my seeds.

The world grew uglier with every day that my seeds did not flower. It grew so ugly that I began to hate it and wasn’t sure if I even wanted my lovely creations to grow here. This was not a happy position from which to create anything. I wonder, I asked myself one very dark night, if there is a different position from which to view this world?

You have to ask such a question before you can begin looking for the answer, and as soon as I began looking, I began to see. I saw the same buildings and sky, listened to the same conversations and music, lived in the same house, was married to the same woman, but I saw a different world. I even began to see the saplings of all that I’d planted. I did not care for a lot them, and so cut some down and stopped watering others. Now I have something to write about, I thought. Now I don’t have to create the world, only share it.