BY DR. AGONSON
I was sitting, working on a story—more accurately, I was not working, but thinking, half daydreaming while my characters were locked in a very awkward social situation that I wanted desperately to avoid—when my eye was caught by the movement of the blinds. They are of a common type, at least where I live: There is a drawstring to either pull them up or let them down, and a rod to turn the blinds either to let light in or block it out.
It was the rod which caught my attention, and as I stared at it, I was perplexed by a singular mystery: There appeared to my eyes a glimmer, slightly offset from the rod, but moving like the rod moved and having the same shape of the rod.
The solution to this illusion was fairly simple: I had mistaken the shadow of the rod for the rod itself. The shadow was much easier to see as the rod is of a clear plastic, and even now that I have seen through the optical trick, the fact that I can still see through it means that I can see the shadow much more clearly than the clear thing. So, the glimmer, which I thought must be some strange reflection of light onto the blinds from the rod, really turns out to be the edge of the real rod catching a bit of the lamp’s light.
Two things struck me in my moment of enlightenment: This inconsequential mistake of mine is a type with others of terrible consequence, and that I could further avoid writing that awkward interaction by putting all this down on paper.
It seems to me that man walks about this earth confusing the shadows which he can see for the wholly real things casting them which he cannot. It is easy to see money, hard to see worth; easy to know what is popularly approved, at least in one’s own circle, hard to know what is really laudable; and it is fairly common that man should be aware of morality, of existence, and of his own body while puzzling over strange glimmers off invisible substances that seem to correlate with these “real” shadows.
To the point: Money is a symbol of value; currencies are languages which give man a way to compare this thing with that. It is easy, however, to confuse a pile of green paper for something valuable in and off itself. Furthermore, if one has any sense of social intercourse, he must shortly see that his peers approve and disapprove of certain opinions and moods, and insofar as he accepts their friendship, accepts their judgement. Yet how often are men swayed into evil mindsets by the popular opinions around him? It is easy to confuse popularity—something which shifts wildly from moment to moment—with that invisible quality of quality which outlasts dynasties as if they were passing fads.
Then there are the more internal things. Most men have and confess knowledge of morality. Still, the implications of morality, of a transcendent judgment, of a transcendent judge, of God, is widely resisted. Most men, save the educated, if the educated can indeed be saved, know that existence exists. Yet the unavoidable fact that existence, insufficient to compel itself while crying out that it is compelled, speaks of something greater, of some primal source of existence, of a creator, of God, is hardly felt by the common man.
Then too, a man seems terribly confused by his own body. The very knowledge of his body seems to blot out all the rest of him, and armed with the half informed concept of psychology as it is popularly understood (and I claim personal ignorance of any further knowledge of psychology), he feels that these strange and haunting glimmers of the invisible reality can be safely medicated away, for he only knows what he sees. He thinks these shadowy limbs and fading features are the real things, and their ensured decomposition his own. Would that he turn away from the shadows to the things casting them, and from darkness unto light.
My original story is calling out to me, and I ought to return to that dreary task which I really love. Yet, it seems necessary to consider shadows and substance, light and darkness. We poor creatures can hardly see the clear plastic, and how common it is to mistake the hints of it for proofs against it. As I supposed I had seen the rod, I could not see the rod; For the fact that I was seeing its shadow, the transparent plastic was opaque to me. If I had known the shadow from the real, I would have recognized the shadow as proof of the real; However, thinking in that moment that the shadow was the real, I reasoned the substance some unreal dependent of its own darkness. I had reversed everything.
Reason is such a whore: She will take anything into her private parts and later deliver from her womb whatever she was given. Unfaithful to Truth, her true spouse, from the most wicked pleasures she births bastards which often assume the surname, Truth, and truly Truth has few sons by reason. Again, it is shadows and light: Reason, a shadow of truth, can often lead us away from truth.
The rod is mostly invisible to me from my chair where I write, but it still catches a slight glimmer from the lamp, and its shadow is still plain. However, the shadow and the glimmer are fading away as my window behind the blinds becomes brighter and brighter. As they are, the glimmer and the shadow prove the rod; they do not make it anymore than a high price tag makes modern art valuable, or celebrity makes celebrities good, and yet it is hard for me to know the rod apart from these. Similarly, I cannot know God very well save that I see shadows and hints. Like the rod, however, God is not something derived from facts like morality and existence; rather, these realities are pale shadows, falling away as the dark morning passes into dawn, and as the sun strives towards noon.
I think I shall pull up the blinds and let the light in.
Tale Told 