The Parallax of Perception

As a wee young boy, my parents occasionally on Friday night had cocktail parties. My siblings and I were told to clear out, to go upstairs to our bedrooms so the adults could play.  But we would crawl down, then crouch upon the stairway in order to espy the party going on in the Living Room down below. 

The men wore blazers and ties, the women skirts and high heels.  Booming laughter abounded, cigarette smoke filled the air, until the next morning – like Forensic Detectives – we would examine the ash trays.  We could tell who smoked each cigarette by the lipstick.  Sharp-edged Aunt Ruth always came dressed with lips scarlet red.  I was certain then that the adults had everything figured out.  Life seemed just a series of choices, easily navigated, victory preordained.  

As a young man, in my 30s and 40s, I came to realize how foolish I had been.  Adults, by and large, had no grand understanding, life was but a battle of inches, decisions made at best with partial understanding.  The simplicity of my childhood gave way to a bewilderingly broad vista, across which my peers pursued their sense of self.  Careers being launched, some moved with bravado and found early success, others less certain struggled to get by, some dropped out all together.  I moved off grid, then battled for social justice, flew too close to the sun and crashed, ending up working with my hands.  I chose to live close to the ground.  

Now in my 60s, life changes yet again, and I adjust, best as I can.  Almost certainly I am finished framing houses (never say never).  My peers – who pursued a more conventional path – are likely approaching retirement, many as grandparents.  My children still live at home; there is much work yet to be done, which I tackle not with the vigor of mid-life, but seeking a more balanced sustainable approach.  

And then I consider my Mother, she in her 90s, how different must life become, yet again, 30-years hence.  The family house has been sold, she has moved into an assisted living facility.  She seems happy and content, the food is quite good, she is respected, life’s complexity pared to a contemplative calm.  

I become aware of a parallax of perception, which must be the subjectivity of how we understand our life, which perception seems far different from life itself.  Parallax is an abstract noun, defined as “the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object. especially : the angular difference in direction of a celestial body as measured from two points on the earth’s orbit.”  The simplest example, which everyone has experienced, is the effect of objects viewed from a speeding car.  The closer objects seem to quickly pass by, while objects in the distance appear to move slowly.  But the objects are stationary while it is the viewer who is moving.  

In this age of alternative facts, we are bombarded by the constant noise and babel of social media.  In an age when might makes right, the sheer onslaught of images and news is overwhelming.  We seem to thrive on arguing, rather than simply co-existing.  “Rational self interest” is our central logic, but might that be self-limiting, in fact?  What if the underlying cultural assumptions are ill-founded?  What if, to use an analogy, we are looking through the binoculars from the wrong end, making what is easily near at hand seem impossibly far away?  Which only would amplify the parallax of our perception.  

Few are my answers but many my questions.  Increasingly it feels like a cultural re-examination is just over the horizon.  So it may be wise to pause and consider the Roman Stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who counseled, “All life is a preparation for the moment of death.”  

Whether death be near or far, it seems time to settle our emotional accounts, to let calm the ripples on the pond of our collective consciousness.  

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Persephone soon departs, the dark season is just weeks away. The Milkweed blows. Mary Oliver comes to mind.

The milkweed now with their many pods are standing
like a country of dry women.
The wind lifts their flat leaves and drops them.
This is not kind, but they retain a certain crisp glamour;
moreover, it’s easy to believe
each one was once young and delicate, also
frightened; also capable
of a certain amount of rough joy.
I wish you would walk with me out into the world.
I wish you could see what has to happen, how
each one crackles like a blessing
over its thin children as they rush away.