The Myops and Reality

Once there were some people who were quite myopic. Still, they got around just fine by getting up very close to things and kind of feeling around.

One day the group of them saw a vast, ill defined shadow against the vague blue sky. As they approached it each saw something different. One saw, and eventually felt, a rough writhing tube of some sort stretching upward and dripping something like snot. Another found a solid pillar that she could not reach around and which rose into ill focused haze. A third saw hazily, but could not reach, a small wiggling worm-like object. Each could report to the others what he or she saw or felt, but none were tall enough, or had sharp enough vision, to see what held them together, or if indeed they were part of the same vast object. By moving around a bit they could even share each others experiences.

Strangly, there would sometimes be a blast from the heavens like a trumpet, and suddenly all the objects would move away too quickly to follow. It might be days before the myops found them again. They were always together,  and yet the myops simply couldn’t, individually or as a group, see what connected them, or even if there was something that connected them.

Of course this all engendered much speculation. Some of the myops would try squinting and jumping to get some vision of the whole, but to no avail. Eventually some of them gathered other myops into sects; some were devoted to understanding the wiggly worm, some to the writhing tube, and some to the solid pillar. Quite a few devoted themselves to squinting and jumping. And some looked forward to the trumpet blast that would, at least for a time, signal that these objects of devotion have moved off, leaving the myopic people, for at least some time, to look at, and out for one another.