I just saw a music video that involved looping. Now, while the music wasn’t my thing, one of the loops was. While setting it up, the lady sang into the mike the words “Day one” over and over, very close together. After a while, it sounded like she was saying “One day” and not “Day one” anymore. Something was fascinating to me about that.

Is she talking about the beginning of something, or she waiting for something to begin? Is it the present or the future she is talking about? And in a way, are they are the same?

It reminds me of the book “Be Here Now.” It is written in such a way that it also says “Be Nowhere.”

I often hear and see things like this. I often get an “echo” and receive multiple meanings of things. It is just how my brain is wired. Perhaps it is why I’m an artist. Perhaps I had to become an artist to process this phenomenon.

While it is unusual and I like it, it is also a bit of a juggle. I have to determine which experience that the world receives so I know what to share, and then study the experience that I got on my own and ponder it.

Sometimes looking at multiple sides of things is helpful. Sometimes it is confusing. Sometimes it is an amazing gift that opens doors in my head.

I think that this gift is part of why I can tutor people with learning disabilities. Not only can I “hear” what they are trying to say but can’t get out, I understand the multiple signals they are receiving.

We are just radio receivers after all, you know. Our senses are just receivers of information from the world, and from our Creator. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste – all of these senses tell us information about the world around us. All of our sense organs are mechanical, physical things, though. And they are different for each one of us. No person sees the color we collectively refer to as “pink” the same way as another person. It is a construct we agree upon. This shade is “pink” but this one is “red” and this one is “mauve” and that is just the way it is.

But it isn’t.

We are faulty radio receivers. A tube is broken. The dial sticks in one area. The wiring touches in places.

What one person experiences through her senses isn’t the same as what another person experiences. We sometimes don’t realize that. And that is where the confusion starts. What I see and what you see isn’t the same thing. What we both talk about is something in the middle, something that we have agreed upon.

It is, in fact, something that doesn’t even really exist.

Sometimes we don’t even realize this. Sometimes we do, but we don’t realize that the “ideal” thing that we are talking about isn’t there, and we’d really be better off talking about what each one of us sees, really, right there in front of us.

If we can’t even honestly talk about what we see right in front of us, how can we even begin to honestly talk about ideas and concepts as vague as “equality” and “peace” and “compassion”?

But perhaps this is all the heart of compassion. Perhaps if we can just begin to understand that each one of us experiences the world in a different way, and that if we tap into that and share our collective and divergent perceptions we can create a unified whole in our heads. Perhaps if we work together instead of against each other – perhaps if we are patient with ourselves and with each other – we can actually start to understand each other and the world we live in.

One day.
Or day one.

Perhaps the future is right now.