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I know you might not be able to see the image, as it appears there is a problem with the interface. I thought it was a problem with the hosting service itself, but this image is brought in through Imgur, so it shouldn't be an issue there. Weird. 

If you are wondering, it is a picture of daffodils sitting on the kitchen table that I took yesterday and edited last night. You are welcome.

https://i.imgur.com/bQeAgSf.jpg

This next one is a picture of a twig from a cherry tree in our garden that we brought inside to bud and hopefully flower - with my wife in the background. We have two young trees, with one being very young - but we have no idea what the bloom colors are, so we are running an experiment with both and forcing spring upon them early. 

I like these kinds of experiments and I am looking forward to doing a few other little things around the house with what we find. There is also an old wooden bench that is in pretty good nick that we plan on sanding back and painting up for the yard. We don't have a patio yet and it is likely a couple years away, so having some place to sit in the garden is paramount for the summer months.  

https://i.imgur.com/OaDhJvH.jpg

Speaking of explaining pictures - this is where one might see that a picture does contain more information than the words themselves, as it can convey a great deal more quickly without as much room for perceptual errors. One of the problems with words is that they just about all carry a personalized tightening for feeling and image that may not necessarily align with the intention with which they were written.

An example I often use is the word "mother", which for some could be very positive, for others a negative. It is just a word, but can evoke a great deal of emotional attachment. But even if I use a word like elephant, each person will visualize it slightly differently, see it from alternate angles, in various colors, true to life or perhaps in a cartoon. Possibly, as I suggest alternations, your own mind is changing what you see, creating a massive amount of variation between people. 

Giving a picture of an elephant makes it *the* elephant and therefore, the audience will hold that image as it has been presented at that time. Remove the time factor and that will change again, for example, what does Robert De Niro look like? Do you see him, as [Meet the Parents](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/4d/e6/5e/4de65e6f8b6e0e31050d2215ce06afbf--little-fockers-famous-people.jpg) or [Taxi Driver](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/d2/e3/6ad2e356aa53fa471c9ca031bf76bd32.jpg) Robert?

Without the immediate context, our mind pulls up images that it is familiar with, easy to grab, available. This could depend of the input stimulus or mood or a thousand other factors, but often, these become our thoughts habits and given non-visual cues, we build a visual representation of the thing in our mind - our imagination.

The trouble can be is that because we have built it, we are attached to it - but it doesn't mean that what we have created is a fair representation of what was first delivered. We see this online a lot where people write something and the most uncharitable view of what was said gets taken, often by those who have an agenda in the opposite. While a troll can aim to do this, the bias is open to all as what has been proven multiple times, we see what we want to see and if we spend all of our time thinking and surrounding ourselves in one area, especially an emotionally charged one, we see it everywhere. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. 

The hammer in this case is our narrowly focused attention, where what is "important" to people gets actively searched for as well as passively through the subconscious. We can see this effect after buying for example a new car. Prior to the purchase the model was hardly seen or noticed, afterward, every man and his dog seems to drive the same. 

The human imagination is an incredibly powerful tool as we are able to imagine what isn't and find pathways to bring it into existence - we can predict the future based on the past - we can imagine what is on the dark-side of the moon. The downside is that we can create monsters too, personal monsters that hold us back from doing what we might want or need to do - we limit ourselves from an imaginary standpoint, perhaps more often than our own physical limitations enact upon us.

While pictures can convey a message well, for example when building IKEA furniture, they can also hold us back from developing our imaginative skills by not leaving the visual space to build and understand the forms of the imagination, a place where every item can be turned over in all dimensions and reformed endlessly. I have found that when I sit and consume video for example, my imagination is far less active than if I read text. 

Movies are an immersive experience and while we might feel the emotional reaction, there is no space for reflection and no space to imagine a different plot line, different characters in the roles, different sounds - as everything is fed directly into all senses. Have you noticed that when immersed in a movie, your aches and pains might disappear for a time, your depression no longer an issue, your anger dissipated? It is because your body is preoccupied eating from the movie and doesn't have the attention to spare on other factors - even if they may have a more important impact on your life. 

It is no wonder that people scroll through Instagram and spend thousands of hours a year in front of screens consuming from YouTube or Netflix as, they take away the immediate pain of life - take away the energy required to notice and attend to the issues - allow for avoidance. And when there is the chance to avoid personal pain by replacing the input, most tend to replace the input - *and become numb.*

Perhaps the pictures will turn up later, perhaps not - use your imagination.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]



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