Today is my thirteenth anniversary on WordPress. Dear word. Either I have lots to say, or I am stubborn. Both? It depends on your interpretation.

Take a now-famous mugshot. I am sure you have seen it. If not, here is your helpful link. You can view it through multiple lenses. One eye looks at the picture and decides, “There is a man that will not back down. One who takes on challenges for what he believes in.”

Then along comes another eye. An eye that sees that and thinks, “Guilty! They arrested him. He has been booked. Let us get this trial underway! Hurry up and jail him!”

First off, can we all acknowledge that there may be a tendency to assume that if a mug shot exists, they did the crime? Over and over, we get told, “innocent until proven guilty.” Yet, part of us sees the sign the arrested individuals are holding, or the orange overalls, and we start forming a narrative that makes sense.

Music is certainly subjective. “Only in America” has been a campaign song for both of the major political parties. “Yankee Doodle” was used by both sides of the American Revolution.

We really like things to be one way or another. It makes it easier to categorize. And ambiguity just causes trouble. Just ask Schrödinger’s Cat.

If we go to Newton, more trouble finds us. Newtonian fluids exist in constant viscosity. Which make non-Newtonian matters irksome. Like Oobleck.

Oobleck, peanut butter, silly putty; it all sounds like fun for the whole family. But then you get into stuff like quantum superposition. Which, let us be honest, requires you to be much smarter than I am.

Sometimes things make perfect sense. Sometimes life feels like a Rorschach Test. Thirteen years later, I still lack all the answers. (Blue and black? White and gold? Humbug.)

Allow me to offer a solution. One that we can all get behind. Political parties officially have my permission to use this brand-new song:

Interpret THIS

“When the world looks all black and white,

Agree with me, and you’ll be right.

‘Just capitulate,’ I say to you,

If we’re talking politics or goo.”