MAY 18, 2019 – Generally, I’m a fairly good judge of character. Throughout my careers as a practicing lawyer and a manager inside a large bank, I’ve had to place bets on many people. Most bets have turned out as I’d hoped or better.
But a few years back a bet went wrong. I misjudged the character of a central figure in a dispute. When the truth about the someone was revealed, I took myself to task. “To task” meant a long, solo bike ride to review how I’d missed and misinterpreted the clues.
Deep into the ride, I glanced at the puffy clouds ahead. Their shapes distracted me from self-critique. I imagined one cloud as a dragon, another as a sailing ship, yet another as a castle built into a mountainside. As the dragon morphed into a sheep dog and the castle into cotton candy, I pictured how those clouds might appear from a plane flying into them or just over the tops; or how they would look from the same bike path but a mile ahead; from a mile behind; and so on.
This exercise produced a “25-Cent Aphorism,” which tied back to the person I had misjudged.
In contemplating those clouds, subconsciously I had been taking stock of a lot more—people, encounters, information, arguments. An imaginary prize-for-a-quarter machine inside my head kicked out a plastic capsule. In it was a slip of paper bearing the following words:
Many things are not what they appear to be, and few things are only what they appear to be.
What was that cloud up there? It might well look like a sailing ship, just as the argument someone pitches sounds as clear as a ship’s bell; just as the sailor standing at attention appears ready for duty. But when you subject the “sailing ship” to closer examination, the vessel changes into your brother-in-law’s bouffant, or, more to the point—just a lot of hot moist air that condenses upon rising and meeting colder atmosphere aloft. Likewise, the “clear” argument is nothing more than a parrot’s trick, and the ramrod-straight sailor is so sauced, the captain ordered that he be tied to the mast.
We’ve all experienced these metaphorical phenomena—the beautiful home that has great curb appeal but flunks the inspector’s review; the argument that is convincing until you examine the premises; the job applicant (“political candidate”?) who presents well initially but then reveals he is little more than a manure spreader.
Clouds, arguments, people—many are not what they appear to be. By the same (25-cent) token, however, little in life is black or white, on or off, good or bad, true or false. Within most sets of opposites lie nuance and ambiguity.
I find that application of my “25-Cent Aphorism” to life brings more reliable insight and less disappointment. If I keep in mind that many things can fool me and that few things can be measured precisely by only one dimension, I will increase the odds of my bets.
© 2019 Eric Nilsson
