Unicorns

“A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until—‘My God,’ says a second man, ‘I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn.’ At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience… ‘Look, look!’ recites the crowd. ‘A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.’

-Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”

If one does not possess a frame of reference to include the spaces at the periphery, then how can that one claim to know for sure what they “see”. We must not forget that we view everything through the lens of our choosing. A scientist, a religionist, a philosopher and a poet (none of whom, I am nearly certain, would ever walk into a bar together, with or without arrows in their foreheads 😉)—they each look at something through their lens. But do we call that something “reality”, or is the lens itself the reality? Is reality simply a conspiracy of consensus? Or is reality the subject, the one looking? Does the ocean know the wave? Can the wave know the ocean? While we continue to investigate, I suggest we keep our unicorns close, and watch the bubbles ride those crests and burst. (Unicorns love it when that happens.)