E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial | Steven Spielberg, 1982
The difference between glass and smoke. Behind glass, sight is all we have. We can study, observe, hypothesise; but we can’t feel. Glass is cold, clinical. Glass is distance. A frog in a jar is a frog in a jar. It’s there. We see it so it’s real. But shrouding something in smoke creates doubt. Sight is unreliable, and rationality disappears. We want to believe so we do. Blind hope. A sound from the mist. It’s probably a coyote, but what if it isn’t? How can we find out? We have to look again. We have to look closer. We have to throw a ball into the unknown to see if it comes back. And what if it does?