OK - this time I am not going to tell you what this is a picture of: you will have to GUESS! *
(Answers in comments please - although I'm afraid there is no prize for the correct answer.)
A few helpful hints:
First of all I have doctored the photograph a little bit to disguise the object.
Secondly it is a close-up.
Thirdly it is an object that just happened to be lying on my desk this afternoon.
Doesn't help? No, I suppose not.
But I didn't say it was going to be easy.
Have a guess anyway!
Maybe there will be a prize for the most original suggestion?
[* Remember you can click on the photo to zoom in]The thing is when you look at something from a different angle, or in a different context, or in a different light, or even just from a different viewpoint, even the most familiar of objects can appear strange and mysterious.
Truth can be like that too.
That's why it is sometimes dangerous to be too dogmatic about something you believe to be true. It may be that you haven't got the whole truth: or perhaps there is simply more than one way to look at it.
Yesterday I came across a little poem by Yehuda Amichai that warns of such dangers.
The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai
by Yehuda Amichai
From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
and if you want it in Hebrew...
11 comments:
Hi Ian, great post. Is true about what seems real. One thing we must also understand is that we have to be ready to accept what is real in order to see it. If we want to catch a big fish and can only catch a little one, can we accept the little one and be grateful or do we accept nothing but the biggest one?
You do get the award for blogs that make us think!
"If we want to catch a big fish and can only catch a little one, can we accept the little one and be grateful or do we accept nothing but the biggest one?"
Interesting thought.
By the way... the mystery object is not a fish. :-)
Your mystery photo is driving me nuts......
Still looking.......love a good puzzle......
"That's why it is sometimes dangerous to be too dogmatic about something you believe to be true. It may be that you haven't got the whole truth: or perhaps there is simply more than one way to look at it."
Excellent advice! So true, no matter how you look at it.
I shall return with a guess!
Never surrender.
Yeah, go on and have a guess, Cherie. :-)
it looks a bit like that new corkscrew bottle opener thing you got at christmas time, however i don't think that is what it is.
if only i had been in the study yesterday!
Maybe it depends on which tools we use to see reality. If we only see our personal thoughts as reality, then mental growth may not be our path. But if we share our tools and thoughts, then catching a fish can be a great experience and the size of the fish won't matter, unless we are hungry and have many mouths to feed.
Ailsa, go sneak into his office for us, will you?
Tom and I looked at that photo just before midnight last night and went to bed discussing whatever could it be?
I dreamt about it. I woke up this morning realizing that all my mind's ruminations got me nowhere, except where we started. It looks like it has a nob, and a spring, and is something that is used to adjust tension, but for what purpose? We thought of a bottle opener, too, a cork screw, but don't see screw threads. We thought of everything from jewelry, to something plumbing-ish, a small section of an office tool or a fishing rod. Is it part of a violin? A car part? A bicycle? Something to do with measuring?
We need illumation for proper color, scale for proper size. We need the camera to pull back so we can if it's attached to something.
And then I realized that what I was doing with this little whatever-it-is is similar to how truth is often handled, which is your point. I plucked out just the tad that I think I recognize, and am trying to make it fit somewhere so I can have an answer, closure.
How many times do we pluck a bit of truth out of a larger context, create a false context around it which is 'understandable' to us, leave it there, apply it incorrectly, and soon call it doctrine?
Scary.
(It's still simmering on the back burner of my mind. I am eager to find out what it is, but will be patient until others have a chance to consider this maddening puzzle. You know, Iain, you don't have to write a sermon this week. Just put that picture up on the screen at church and tell everyone to figure it out. They'll be talking to one another, puzzling it over, and you can sit there enjoying tea and cookies!)
Iain, I've decided its something to do with your fiddle. Is it a fine tuner? But loving all the philosophical discussion you've set in motion
i haven't sneaked into the study but i think it may be a bicycle/fotball pump.
am i right?
Good Morning Ian and fellow bloggers. Like Cherie I cannot resist a good puzzle and was hooked with your photo. I even tried zooming in but that just made it worse. With another wee bit of homespun philosophy, is that not also like the truth - the closer you are to something the more difficult it is to see how it fits into the whole picture. Sometimes we need to take a step back to get the overall view. I am sure if we were to get into your office and see the thingamyjig lying on your desk in its natural habitat we would recognise it right away.
Before I get too carried away here I must remember to leave my guess. The only thing I can get from it is some kind of fancy pencil sharpener.
Alex
Hi Alex. Nice try but it's not a pencil sharpener. However you're right about sometimes getting too close to something to grasp its significance (can't see the wood for the trees etc.)
I'm going to put people out of their misery soon. Keep checking it out.
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