"What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance"

Human experience is built on perception. Every encounter, every glimpse of the world, is filtered through the senses, which are inherently limited and subjective. What is seen or heard presents a reality, yet often it’s simply the surface, an appearance carefully crafted by circumstance or design, not a direct path to truth.

When something seems authentic or transparent, curiosity compels deeper scrutiny. However, beneath that first layer typically lies another veil, another constructed version, sometimes more intricate, sometimes more opaque than the first. Understanding is a form of excavation, unearthing successive surfaces that mask or mimic substance, each influenced by expectations, social context, and individual bias. Sometimes, these appearances are deliberate: people present facades to protect vulnerability, societies cloak harsh realities with propaganda or tradition, and nature disguises function with beauty or threat with camouflage.

Trust in appearances risks misunderstanding by taking the observable at face value. Yet peeling away appearances may only reveal new ones, suggesting an endless regress. Reality recedes as investigation deepens; rather than arriving at some perfect, unvarnished truth, understanding encounters layer upon layer of representation. The desire to reach an essence is frustrated by the resilience of these surfaces, each shaped by perspective, language, and culture.

Understanding, then, might not lie in exposing a hidden core, but in acknowledging the existence and purpose of these appearances. Just as paintings use surface and color to evoke meaning beyond the literal, layers of appearance convey messages that go beyond mere fact, exposing intentions, fears, aspirations, and histories. Life’s complexity cannot be disentangled from the multiplicity of its appearances.

What stands behind the initial surface is rarely pure truth, but rather another aspect of complexity, another mask fashioned by the needs and realities of the time. Real insight emerges not from stripping everything down to some imagined core, but from recognizing, interpreting, and respecting the ever-present, ever-shifting layers that shape experience.