The Things We Perceive

"Nothing in our brain is truly objective. Our perception is deeply and pervasively shaped by how we feel about the things we perceive."

Aren't there. Aren't that,
Aren't as we perceive them.
We know this because we've tested
Each other with various lies
And found that we fail to recognize
The truth that our ruses
Are designed to disguise.

Or they are there. They are
Whatever it is that we believe
They are. It is not the blind
Men groping the elephant
Nor the social psych subjects
Tricked by postdoctoral confederates
Who are fooled, except in our stories,

Designed, like errata
Notices produced by media,
To convince us the truth is
Out there, or in here,
In the text of our expert reports,
Vouchsafed by these very same
Revelations of precisely measured mistakes.

There never was an elephant.

There were only those few worlds
Of finite organisms feeling something
With necessarily limited senses.
And if that's not the whole truth,
Then design your own trickery.
I am that which perceives that I am.