Bootwhistle

White fire truck?... the thought foggily ran through my frost addled brain. Upon a recent trip to Edmonton (which gets really, really cold during winter) I was out doing errands when the sight of a white fire truck driving by stopped me in my tracks. Of course my first consideration was that I had just confused the whiteness of the truck with all the snow on the ground, but several blinks confirmed that there was indeed a white fire truck driving past me. Aside from briefly imagining that maybe it was the secret stealth fire crew that needed to catch fires unawares ... I really was unsure of what to think of a friggin white fire truck... in the middle of winter in a city covered with over a foot of very white snow!!!

Now the above little story really has no point other than to illustrate the confusion that this world seems to offer. Rational reasons for man made constructs are many but sometimes the practicality of them escapes most people. One can easily imagine over rationalization as being just as dangerous as someone being completely without reason (cough [insert name of disgraced public figure here] cough). The real issue I want to bring up is the balance between the illogically stupid and the intelligently practical... hmm that's a bit too much of a wordy way to put it - how about the balance between imagination and realism? (meh, still not quite right but it'll do) .
Perhaps to put it simply, the difference between how a child and an adult may see things. Children may look at a white fire truck and consider it special, even create a background story with the truck being ridiculed by the other red and yellow trucks... hmm, this sounds oddly racist so let's try something else (well at least I didn't mention the black trucks - I know this is very bad).
Or maybe a quote from ol' Albie Einstein would be more appropriate:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

Now I wouldn't consider everything is a miracle (a flushing toilet is a flushing toilet) but seeing everything as practical and mundane isn't too healthy either. So getting back to the main point - it's all about finding the balance, being able to see the miracles of living and knowing when your watching parlor tricks. Though I would contend with there is usually a third way to live ones life... and that is to be so devoid of consciousness that miracle or not - one doesn't see anything. I'm sure almost everyone has experience it, that zombie like state where one just exists for whatever task has to be done - be it at work, home or someplace inbetween. I guess it could just be referred to as apathy, a state in which one no longer cares about anything but plugs along like a good peon of their society/whatever social structure you believe in.
We often get caught up in our day to day routines that seeing anything beyond it gets to be impossible, so next time your at work/home/space just take a look around you - how you see the world is your own business, just so long as you see it. So if you ever get the chance to see a white fire truck driving through a snow covered landscape... find your own reaction to it, little things like that can make your day a bit more interesting.