Perception
Written from within the blindness of proximity, for those still distant enough to see
Sees a dead swan, said a rat.
"Submerge me in depth: those eyelids go."
And I, with red-tainted hands,
couldn’t measure how deep the blood-filled snow.
Do these rats know
about getting killed
for staying too long nearby?
Rat is wondering;
rat continues to think.
"Blending in the whiteness above,
and to even go there,
for when in the mood to fly!?"
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It’s interesting how people can deeply appreciate the culture of a place they’ve never lived in. They notice beauty in its traditions, language, music, or way of life…sometimes (often(most of the time)) more than the people who grew up there.
What’s strange is that this happened even before the man’s favorite thing (hint- internet ) made global exposure easy. Back then, people discovered other cultures through books, letters, art, or travelers’ stories. They didn’t see everything, but what they saw felt rare and meaningful (maybe that’s the reason I used to find the outer world so interesting through the colorful pictures in my GK books)
Maybe that distance made them imagine the rest (: and imagination often adds a kind of purity or idealism that real experience can’t sustain (cute isn’t it? lol)
When you live inside a culture, you stop noticing its details. The space and sounds that define it, start feeling ordinary, even boring. And while questioning all the attainable “benefits” from it… you dissolve the beauty too much into a façade of rationality. It might also be because you get dulled by the usualness of things that are supposed to be there.
For me if anything i know, I’d pay the heftiest amount possible to see the world with fresh, naive, and unbiased eyes. Maybe just for the irony…but the distance would give me the clarity.
