Finding Nessie

Today, I thought that I was finally able to catch of the Loch Ness Monster. I was naturally joking as I was not in England. Still I have devoted several man days to prowling banks of several rivers to catch a glimpse of otter. I had years looking for the rare sight without any success.  

I was by the river when I spotted an animal moving slowly along the grass. I grabbed my camera and tried to zoom in on the animal. I found that my camera had malfunction and I was not able to zoom in on it. The shots were blurry and this was the best image of the otter.

Maybe I am going blind.....

Sounds familiar? This sounds like the story of every sighting of Big Foot, Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster (aka Nessie). Now did I believe, I saw an otter. Definitely. Did I have some difficulty with the camera? Positive even if it turned out to be caused by myself. (I accidentally set the camera mode to multiple images. Not multi shot which would have given me several shots with one click. I still get several images with 1 click but they are colour filtered or have special effects like fish eye applied to the different shots. It took me 10 minutes to figure it out.)

I am touching on the topic of self deception. I was truly convinced that I had seen an otter and had even captured it on film. (OK, on disk as it is a digital camera) So what made me wary that I had made a mistake? The fact that I encountered 2 monitor lizards in the vicinity. The picture below what caught my eye first. As one can see the scales in the head of the animal.

I hate these blurred lines.....

So why not just pretend that I have seen an otter in the wild. I have pictures of them taken at a zoo. Maybe, it is because I accept that I may never accomplish everything on my bucket list? That I am willing to let down people who have unrealistic expectations of me? Maybe I have some nice pictures of eagles so I do not need an otter at the moment.

I will be where the eagles flying higher and higher......

I am not saying that I do not lie. I often reply that I am fine even when I see a doctor. It is just that I do not need to lie about my accomplishments or the lack of them.

"Worse than to telling a lie is spending your life being true to a lie."Robert Brault