I know, with some certainty, what a Rabbit looks like, even if he shows up wearing a plaid jacket and a gold waistcoat.
Sometimes I can’t believe my own eyes.
Usually, however, the problem isn’t with my eyes. The problem is believing them.
Other people apparently have the same problem, especially with Ducks and Rabbits. For example, this illustration from Chronicle Books.
In this illustration, two people are claiming to see two different animals. One person sees a Duck. The other person sees a Rabbit.
But in fact, there aren’t two people; there’s just me, looking at the picture. And I see a Duck.
And I also see a Rabbit.
Not at the same time, however. When I see the Duck, I can no longer see the Rabbit. And vice versa. I suppose some people can see both of them at the same time. But not me.
People have created other illustrations that challenge our belief systems. Here’s a pretty famous rendering of two women. But only one at a time, please.
Some people, when they look at this drawing, see an Old Woman with a large hooked nose and a prominent chin, wearing a hat covered with a scarf and dressed in a fur coat.
Other people see a Young Woman with her face turned away to the left. Also wearing a hat covered with a scarf, and dressed in a fur coat.
I personally think this is a drawing of a Young Woman. But I can see how other people might think it’s an Old Woman.
Some people can see both the Young Woman and the Old Woman… but only one, or the other, at any given moment.
A few people can reportedly see both of them at the same time. It all depends on how much you want to believe.
Back when I was still together with Darlene, there were times when I believed I had married an angel from heaven.
Then, there were other times, when I felt differently.
I go through a similar process with my cat, Roscoe. Sometimes he seems like my best friend, but there are other times when I’m convinced he’s just taking advantage of me, and laughing at me behind my back.
If you have a cat, you’ve probably noticed that you can never tell if they are smiling because they dearly love you, or because they’re imagining how pleasurable it would be to scratch your eyes out.
The illustrations shared above — the Duck/Rabbit and the Old/Young Woman — were intentionally created to fool your eyes, depending on your beliefs.
But other things, less innocent, are going on every day that also challenge our beliefs.
Smiling cats, for example.
And ‘AI’. Artificial Intelligence could possibly turn out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to the human race, or it could be the best thing. Maybe even, both, at the same time.
Same with politics. Our government leaders seem, on one hand, to want the very best for us. But they also seem to be laughing behind our backs, and planning to scratch our eyes out.
It’s hard to hold both of those (probably accurate) beliefs in our minds, simultaneously.
For most of us, we tend to see and believe whatever our friends on social media want us to see and believe. If our friends are saying “It’s a Duck”, then we want to agree with them, because after all, we’re friends. And so we make ourselves believe it’s a Duck.
When it’s actually a Rabbit.
But who wants to get Unfriended, when it might — just might — be a Duck?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.