I attended a play at the Alley Theatre recently here in Houston with family and friends. The play was Holmes and Watson. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was tired of writing about Sherlock and wanted to get into other things so he killed him off in 1893 - both Holmes and his arch enemy Moriarty went over a cliff and died. Or did they? There was such an uproar from the public that Doyle eventually brought him back.
In this play, three men in an asylum all claiming to be Sherlock Holmes are discovered and Watson is called in to determine which one is the real Sherlock. At the beginning of the play Watson introduces himself and shares what he has been called to do. You are immediately wrapped up in the situation, believing everything he says.
But is he telling the truth?
It turns out he wasn't. But because we were initially led to believe that he was in the beginning we accepted that at face value and went through the entire play observing the story as if the real Watson was the man that introduced himself. How different the play would be if we went back to see it again knowing who he really was.
The same is true for The Sixth Sense that came out in 1999. In the movie, a boy who communicates with spirits seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist. It's ok for me to reveal it after all this time that the psychologist was actually deceased in the movie and didn't realize it. But the first time you saw the movie you had no idea. And once you knew the catch, and went back to see the movie again - it was such an interesting watch from the new perspective.
We are all so quickly pulled into situations accepting things at face value. We need to go a little deeper and stay open to possibilities. How easily our lives get influenced by our first impressions. What a great risk it is not to question and remain curious. Stay aware - stay curious my friends.