My project has a visual component, but I'm not going to show it to you. Instead, I'm going to describe it to you, and I'd like for you to try and imagine it.  So, I'd like for everyone to close their eyes for a couple of minutes.  Go on... close them.  Ok, now... even if your eyes are shut, I'd like you to try and see what I speak to you... 

I can't help but wonder sometimes, in those early morning hours, when I drift in and out between my dreams and the waking world, that there is something there, just beyond my reach - something that I can only catch in a whisper, or a glance.  Something that lingers even after my eyes and ears fail to confirm.  It is inescapably real, yet impossible to reach.  As I awaken and stare up at the ceiling, tracing its blankness with my eyes, I can't help but think that the whole of reality is just a thin veil - and that it blinds us like a bright light shining directly into our eyes.  Sometimes though, in that still time, I wonder if our imaginations can show us the truth better than our senses.  Can you see it?

After a brilliant light, and then through a rushing wave of darkness, there is a great ocean of clouds, and they flow endlessly across a horizon of blue.  I take a deep breath, and look downward as I feel a chill tingle up my spine. 

Beneath me, I see two great mountains beneath the clouds, wreathed with dense green forest and crowned with glittering snowy peaks.  There, inbetween the two peaks, lies nestled a single small village.  Nearby, a deep stream of clear rushing water flows down from between the two mountains and alongside the village.  The houses are simple and functional, but elegant in a way that shows they have seen great care.  Everything looks new and alive.

It's a place where people laugh, and love, and, celebrate the turning of each season of life together.  They smile at each other with genuine warmth as they pass by in the streets, and everyone knows each other by name.  The children play joyfully in the clear blue creeks and across the beautiful pine fields.  Everyone seems to grow up here, but never grow old.  

They all have a place, a tradeskill, an artistic craft - and each person spends their days pursuing the beauty within themselves and in the world around them as they work faithfully at their chosen profession.  Painter, architect, carpenter, weaver, baker, gardener, builder, farmer...  Each is as respected as the other, and the people trade and share from their possessions generously, because they trust each other to always provide for one another.  The people take to work as easily as they take to play, toiling joyfully in the cool sun as blossoms from cherry trees planted in the center of town gently through the cobblestone streets. 

There is no desperate need here, or wild unfullfilled yearnings of jealousy or greed.  Friends and families share freely all they have, for all they have has been freely given.  The concept of ownership is not unknown, but it is foreign nonetheless. People and things are not to be possessed, but instead honored and cared for as though belonging to someone else.

Serenity lives here.  And Joy.  And all the other children who brighten the town with their radiant smiles and happy faces.  Parents beam over them with pride as their voices ring out, encouraging them, teaching them, and reminding their children to be home in time for dinner.

The seasons turn by in swaths of green, gold, and white, bringing only new celebrations as time passes.  Indeed, it seems hardly to pass at all.  Can you see it?

Just outside of the village, a solitary, well-tended gravestone rests, wreathed in bright yellow roses and deep blue tulips.  Engraved upon the stone in silver-wrought lettering reads the inscription "Our Hero - one who gave up life to save the village from terrible disaster."  No other graves have ever been known to exist in this place.  It's as though Death's chill hand has never managed to find these people, nestled between their twin guardian peaks.

The people here are not ignorant of evil, nor are they intolerant.  Evil simply has no presence here.  Or rather, it doesn't anymore.

Once, there was an outcast of the village - a man whose name has been deliberately forgotten.  While living there his nature seemed to be to sow dischord and anger among all he met, and he took advantage greedily and endlessly from the sharing ways of the honest townsfolk.  Although their hearts never ceased giving to him in goodwill and hope, worry and doubt crept into some hearts at no sign of change.  In the end, though, before a greater damage could be done, the man tightly packed up all that he had been given and left the villiage, desiring to be forever free from their infuriating kindness.

After a time, he established a new village beyond the forest at the far base of the western mountain.  His town quickly sprang into a city, but it appears quite different from the simple village between the two peaks.  Can you see it?

Surrounding its overlarge, brooding households and garish buildings stands a foreboding wall of wrought iron, with pillars of writhing stone clawing up from the ground at the corners of each of it's four monstrous gates.  The homes are ornate but cold, as though a pall of death lingers over each and every one.  The town's cemetery stretches outward endlessly from the west wall, creating a chilling sunset as the last rays of the sun paint blood-red shadows across the mausoleums and freshly dug graves.  The cemetery is twice the size of the town itself, with row upon row of broken tombstones, each engraved with a eulogy more hollow than the next.

The people of the iron city dart fearfully across the streets, furtively glancing with suspicion at all they pass.  To survive here they know that they must steal, or swindle, or cheat all that they can out of each other and out of life, for only the strongest and most cunning will survive.  Their faces carry the hard lines of stress and anger, their mouths affixed into permanent scowls.  And yet, they comfort themselves with the thought that they have freedom and independence, and that they depend upon no one.  They survive by their own strengths and virtues.  

Children are never seen here, and any that are born tend to die early.  The hard stone pathways seem stained with the blood and the tears of all that they have consumed over the years.  At night, the stray echoes of screams and moaning can be caught on every howl of the sharp icy winds that seem to penetrate every wall and window.  Everyone is desperate, yet few leave out of fear of greater horrors beyond their iron walls.

A solitary metal spire rises up from a gaping maw in the center of the city, streaks of rust and decay coating its dark exterior, jabbing toward heaven like an accusive finger.  Inside the highest level of the spire, atop a dense granite throne, sits the outcast.  He wears a smile that appears frozen upon his face by time, yet it is cruel and mocking.  The levels beneath his throne contain all that he has hoarded and taken over the many years.  Although death ravages his city, he has somehow escaped its grasp.

Then again, perhaps he was never alive.  Can you see it?

A penetrating sound jars my vision away from the tower and back through the ocean of clouds in the sky.  After a rushing wave of darkness, and a brilliant light, I find myself staring once again at the ceiling of my room.  The impenetrable veil of reality has once again been pulled over my vision.

And so it was later on this day that a peculiar observation struck me in regards to this class: That a black box is little more than a construct designed from some facet of self-projection.  In other words, perhaps the greatest and most mysterious black boxes are sitting amongst us this very instant.  

If I can hardly comprehend myself, how much moreso am I ignorant of other people?  Although we can sometimes see people's motives and their resulting actions, we can never truly know the internal processes that drive an individual's actions.  In other words, although we can sometimes see the input, and sometimes see the output, another human being is an enigma to each and every one of us.  We, ourselves, are the beginning of all black boxes.

Sometimes, however, one of these mysterious boxes will open a side of itself and offer a peek into some of its inner workings. This is what I have attempted to do today - to open one facet of the black box of my heart to all of you.  I wonder now if you might feel like doing the same?  How many black boxes in this room might we open, even if just a little bit?  What happened inside of you as I shared this vision of mine? Did you see anything, experience anything?  Could you see yourself in either town?  Who were you, and what did you do?  Did you feel any peace, anxiety, or perhaps disbelief?  Perhaps you felt silly and were tempted to instead open your eyes and look about ther room.  Perhaps you were moved. 

One thing is certain - I will surely never know the answers to any of these questions, unless some of you, perhaps, decide to share from the black box that is yourself.