ThirstyFish

This photograph was taken in Brooklyn Bridge Park. While his owner was reading, this pup was all ears with perfect awareness of everything around him. He immediately gave me a quick stare down when he saw my camera. It seemed like he was the only sentient in the park that was fully aware of his own presence.

I have a few friends that are hard-of-hearing, but unlike the majority of us, they are not hard-of-listening. Hearing and listening are different things - just as looking and seeing are. Hearing is like a microphone without tape, while, looking is like a camera without a media card. Without storage and without any processing, they are useless. How we process and store what we hear and see, is, what we hear and see. Perception is problematic; Beside biological and neurological defects such as Alice in Wonderland syndrome, our perception is susceptible to flaws and biases in memory and cognition. How much of what we perceive is real? Should we care?