As I headed off to my dentist appointment this morning, the sun was shining and each tree was adorned with ice. It was glorious. By the time I pulled over to take a photo, the sun had gone in. But the scene still shone.

Minutes ago, I looked at this pic and felt deflated. It didn’t capture the glory of the world that was out my window.

Just now, I went to the internet and found this:

“That’s better” was my initial reaction. “I’ll use this photo. It’ll help me tell the story better.” I was launching into my new plan when everything just stopped. Something was calling a halt to the proceedings.

“You can’t do this, Bruce. It’s wrong. Not that it will damage anyone else … just you.”

Oh, that voice! It keeps speaking its mind. And from somewhere in my psychological past, I hear the words “cognitive dissonance”. My friend Google gives me the lowdown:

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them

Okay. I have two things going on:

1. I want you to like my sparkling photo
2. I want to tell the truth

I’m clear that one of these values is larger, or “senior” to the other. So … you can gaze at the bright trees all you want. My Belmont, Ontario trees were just as bright, but not when I had my camera ready.

I vote for cognitive concordance.