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Poetry
I’m Not a Flat Earther
And perhaps no one should or should not be
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From here where I stand, the universe stretches before me. And I see my physical world laid out like poster paper against floor to appease the young artist in me. The horizon line is pulled taut and somehow is always level. My feet rest on what feels tangible, stable, and solid beneath me.
It’s flat!
Yet through the astronaut sky-king’s window, my Earth curves, like a perfect sphere hanging in the void of the All-That-Is.
It’s round!
Does not our science now speak of the impact of gravity and kindred laws bending not just space, but also perspective and understanding?
And as well I say, that if I paint a spherical globe onto a flattened disk, is it not then a flat earth? Likewise, if I paint a flat globe onto a sphere, can it remain flat?
Speaking of which, I have remembrance of holding a lens above a map— child’s play, it was—watching continents warp. Oceans on that world of paper would delicately shapeshift, coinciding with the movement of my, in that context, gullible, supposedly comprehending eyes.
We are young! We are early!
Perhaps the joke’s on those who laugh too heartily at fools as they quickly mock the absurdity of beliefs that don’t align with how they perceive their own world.
Is it not already clear enough—that every single person amongst us inhabits a world of our own making?—flattened perception constraints. Even so, it’s all part of the Oneness that we experience in our chosen way.
And so it is, that what appears round from meta, cosmic distance, appears rather flat beneath our daily tread. Within this contradiction lie both truth and illusion—that reality shifts in accordance to influences only vaguely yet understood.
I do not believe the flat earther per se, but I understand her perspective. Though we walk the same earth, we inhabit different dimensions—hold different appreciations—both of us banking on our seeing—both blind to what lies beyond our frame.
So I state beyond all knowingness, that the Earth is neither flat nor round but something more—a multiplicity, a quantum state of simultaneous superimposed Schrödinger truths, that change when measured by each gaze.
Then I avow that before I judge another’s vision, I shall hold me own beliefs to light, to ask what filters my seeing and what horizons limit my horizon.
Ah yes!—for the world is far wider than our various limited theories and is deeper than the deepest of thoughts. Are we not all just children, peering at the pretty paper we’ve drawn as our world? Or perhaps peering through wee holes we poked in it? Either way, it’s the same unanswered mystery.
© Jude Ravenhall, 2025 forward. | You are invited to follow me at medium.com/@jravenhall. | If you would like to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee at https://Ko-fi.com/ravenhall.
