"Human kind cannot bear very much reality." [Thomas Stearns Eliot]

This chapter really blew open some ideas that I found myself pondering after reading the first chapter. I found this quote above that I think explains quite well my impression of reality. I often sit and ponder the things that I hold close [the things I seem to know] as my “reality”. But if I stop to take a deeper look at these “realities” I find myself wondering…. Are these realities separate entities or am I only catching one certain perspective on a larger landscape? And if the latter happens to be true then what makes one large entity seem as though it is many? This brings me back to the idea in chapter one concerning change. If I am dealing with a larger entity, then how does movement affect the way I cope with this. I think what would best describe this reality is a metaphorical piece.

I am an eye staring straight ahead at a wall in front of me. I haven’t the ability to move my eye around but only the ability to stare straight at the wall. Everything within my vision is a thing that I know. Those things, which are in clear focus, are things that I know and understand. Those things at the edge of my vision, blurred and incoherent, are my potential growth. I see them but am not focused in their direction so I cannot clearly make out what they may be, yet. As I see these things in my peripheral vision I immediately try and relate them to the things that I already have in focus. By doing this it causes me to slide straight back and brings those things that were once at my furthest sight to be brought in closer and more into focus. As I derive meaning for these things, through comparison to those that were already in my focus, I gain understanding. And the process continues as I push myself back even further and further. As of now I have seen no end to this wall and know no one that has either. We all look at the same wall and though we all are at different levels of focus we see some of the same things that cause us to create laws. This would explain why those further in life most times see more of the wall [more mature] and understand more what those closer in [younger] do not.

This is a quite abstract thought, which I have found to be fairly hard to unravel. I hope that the metaphorical writing helps in the explanation.