Chasing reflections at the lake is easy: all that water, you know? Catching nice ones is a bit harder. The water can be ripply or scummy or both. The frame can be difficult to unclutter. The object being reflected can be unlovely.
At our friends’ cottage, I keep trying to get a nice reflection photo of a striking-yellow paddle-boat. Somehow it just usually never works (as I heard someone say on the radio this week). But today as I cropped and cropped and cropped, looking for that elusive attractive reflection, my perseverance was rewarded: not with the object of my affections/efforts but with a surprise face.
Life is like a box of chocolates:
You never know what you’re gonna get.
– Forrest Gump
Where’s Rorschach when I need him?
Tom
Tom – I think he’s dead . . . In fact, I was surprised to discover that he died a month before my father was born. Now that’s getting ancient!
I’m sure I’ve told you all about my father’s conclusion that the whole Indian subcontinent was schizophrenic, based on his studies with Rorschach ink-blots. In general, he explained to me, people who are deemed mentally healthy look at the ink-blot as a whole. So they say it looks like a butterfly, or a fire hydrant, whatever. People who don’t fit the norm tend to look at little details –a promontory that looks like a bicycle wheel, or a gap that looks like an eyeball, ignoring the larger picture. Dad said that Indian people, in general, all looked at the details. He thought his PhD thesis would be rejected because large masses of people are not supposed to be mentally unbalanced, but he had been rigidly rigorous in his application of the various psychological tests, so they couldn’t.
And the moral of this story, of course, is that the next time you run across an East Asian who seems overly persnickety about details in a contract, etc., remember that he’s not being difficult — it’s his cultural norm.
JIm T
Jim – No, this is the first I’ve heard about your father’s research. It makes you wonder how much of what we sort of casually refer to as “mental health” is culturally defined. I’ll keep that detail orientation in mind, should the situation arise. Your story reminds me of another one. I took close-to-beginner French at university in my thirties, along with a bunch of 18-year-olds who seemed to have no views of the world. Our text had insipid cultural tidbits in each chapter. One was about Joan of Arc and it described her report of hearing voices as delusion. My opinion of that cavalier dismissal must have shown on my face because our professor looked at me and laughed and said something like, “And for a different view of the matter, check with Joan.” I wouldn’t say that hearing voices was standard, but it was her experience, whether it fits with our world view or not.
Who knew that paddle boats wore sunglasses and lurked in places where they could scan for intruders?
Nice cottage country pictures even if they do have weird second lives as slightly monstrous faces!
Laurna – Well, I did not know that about paddle boats, for sure. I believe I’m now done with trying to get pretty pics of this ungainly watercraft.