percepts

I think that when people say "perception is everything" they're wrong on two counts: (1) they use "perception" as though it were synonymous with "perspective"; and (2) "perspective" is not everything. So lets get this straight: "perception" only happens if you "perceive" some thing; i.e., you can't "perceive" something that is not real. If you see something one way on Monday, and then another way on Tuesday, it's not your perception that has changed, it's your "perspective" that has changed. But your "perception" remains the same, unless the object itself has changed in some way between Monday and Tuesday. Perception is objective, perspective is subjective: what you see is perceptual, how you see it is perspectival.  You cannot "perceive" something unless it exists. So indeed "perception" is, in many ways, "everything," but not if one conflates it with "perspective." And "perspective" is most definitely not everything: there are far more important things involved in the act of perception than my perspective of the perceived.

[If I were going to use phenomenological language, I should use the term "profile" instead of "perspective." Likewise, by this vocabulary, I'd speak of this as a conflation between the perception of object-X, and my profile -- i.e., my temporal subjective intending -- of object-X.]

The Lost Embrace

Embrace which once was profound solace

Hast turned from respite in to spite;

Body from which I now recoil

Wast once my only true delight.

But rhymes cannot attain

That night we walked, from lamp to lamp

Asphalt glowing under streetlight

Innocent as roaming children

Unstrickened by worlds of men and women

In a chill which held the hope of years.

I met you there,

That none might know the fathoms of my secret plight;

As even then I now desire,

But cannot give you back the night.

Time heals nothing, though space may rectify

The brutal callous of my thought.

Separately, in separate lives, one might justify the naught.

The Dominance of Reason

"When the physical state of the brain dominates my thinking, it produces only disorder. But my brain does not become any less a brain when it is dominated by Reason: nor do my emotions and sensations. Reason saves and strengthens my whole system, psychological and physical, whereas that whole system, by rebelling against Reason, destroys both Reason and itself." + C. S. Lewis (Miracles: A Preliminary Study, p. 48)