Whatever the eye beholds.

Whatever the eye Beholds

The difference between you and I is something that only you and I notice. To others, we have two eyes, two arms and two legs and function in a similar bio-mechanical fashion. In Shakespeare's classic. " The Merchant of Venice," we have the classic soliloquy "Have we not two eyes, two legs?" etc.

We may think that our thoughts and ideas differ radically, but we use the same frame of reference when speaking of most things. Others would think our "religious differences" miniscule. Generally, we accept the notion of a single deity and ascribe to the belief system a code of behavior that is noble and uplifting in its aspirations. Where are the major differences?

Some would make note of the fact that we live on different scraps of land and perhaps express our ideas in different forms of speech or wave different colored pennants in the air. Closer examination reveals more similarity than disparity. How many times have you seen people make themselves understood with facial grimaces and "body English." Are we really so different?

An extra terrestrial whose life form is silicon based instead of carbon and whose primary means of "breathing" necessitated a methane based atmosphere, that would be toxic to us, might make a case that he/she/it was truly different. The rest of us would look silly making a case to him/her/it that we were all indeed different forms of our species.

And what of the notion of afterlife? Do ephemeral mists come in colors with distinguishing facial characteristics? How much does the energy of pure thought and ideas differ among the earth bound.

In an old "Star Trek" television series there was an episode that featured two bitter enemies. They chased each other throughout the Universe, bent on murder. At the very end of the episode, it developed that the source of their hatred and life long prejudice was that one had the left side of his face blackened and the right side white. The other was born with the reverse. No one else could see the difference but the two combatants. It defined their outlook on life and towards each other. I would suggest that, like these two television characters, we manufacture our own differences to suit some inner deficiency or character flaw, one that is not readily apparent to any one else.

In the classic novel " Gullivers Travels," we have the concept even more starkly outlined. An entire people fought with and despised each other because they cracked open their breakfast egg from the small end or the large end respectively. Jonathan Swift masterfully developed the parody of our silly foibles in the extreme.

You and I are different because we wish it to be so. Would that it were not. We might actually all get along, after a fashion, however unsettling that notion might be to some.

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Joseph Xavier Martin