Doors of Perception

"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception" - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963).

A camera is a portal to both ordinary worlds and otherwordly mysterious realms. Sometimes the two coalesce, but only for an instant, and hint at other unfathomable and inaccessible universes; all teasingly poised just beyond the impenetrable boundary between what we see and ... ?

What lies beyond the door of perception? What meets our silent inquisitive gaze as we gently push it open?

Would what we newly see change everything we've ever known? Would the world we leave behind seem as incomprehensible to us as the one we enter? Are all but Shamans truly blind?

How shall we describe what lies beyond? Will our old words and concepts be enough? Or will they merely be useless relics of the past; meaningless symbols of a misaligned reality?

What happens when we discover a new language to express our strange perceptions (assuming that such a language even exists, or that we are clever enough to find it)? Will new categories emerge, subjectively partitioning our world into newly objectified parts?

Or will the new, still unrecognizable abstract forms suddenly revert back to old meanings (or appear to), subtly revealing even deeper recessed mysteries to be explored...?

What was the world like, I wonder, before I stepped into this one? Is there anyone left to understand my answer?

"As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious." - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965).