Layers

June 25

I am thankful for layers. As a person who uses photoshop extensively for processing photos, layers have been important to me. Layers allow one to change what is visible in the photo without affecting the original photograph, so you can always go back to the original and start over, or reduce the opacity of certain layers to minimize the effect. Layers build upon one another so that the final version of what you see is a composite of all the layers. From a psychological point of view, layers of personality are added one by one and can be stripped away one by one when changes need to be made. One of my favorite undergraduate teachers at LSU was a professor of psychology named Dr. Edwin Timmons. He spoke of our personality as an onion, with each layer representing new things you add on top of the old. He often said to overcome abnormal behavior that people often have to peel away layers of their onions one by one until they get down to the core and start over.

This is a photo of a large piece of driftwood which has taken on layers. The layers come from the fact that trees add a new ring of growth each year. That is why one is able to tell the age of a tree by the number of rings. Therefore, trees are good examples of things that have layers. 

an old onion

i’m an old onion

that is certainly true

there’s not very much

that this onion can’t do

i’ve built up layers

upon layers of my onion

to built up defenses

and give me superb protection

if you want to see me

and get to the core inside

you’ll have to strip away

the layers in which i hide

but your doing so

will certainly bring a tear

remember i’m an onion

my noxious fumes will appear.

© rt tulley