Parable Of The Bruises

A bright little boy with heavy astigmatism came home from the eye doctor with his very first pair of glasses. In a short while, he discovered that his glasses distorted the aspect ratio of objects: circles became ovals.

Worried that he was seeing a "distorted view of the world", he stopped wearing them. Due to his poor eyesight, he kept tripping over furniture and objects and collected quite a set of bruises.

His mother asked him why he had so many bruises. His new glasses were supposed to solve that. "I found out my glasses show me an incorrect aspect ratio; fat people look skinnier than they are, for example. I want to see the world right!"

"Isn't blurriness also distortion?" asked his mother. "Yes," he said, "but I can tell if something is blurry, but it's not obvious that I am seeing the aspect ratio wrong. I may forget I'm seeing the world wrong. I would rather have bruises than see the world wrong and not know it."

CategoryIdealism