# 13 SEEING AND BELIEVING
Our puppet strings are hard to see,
So we perceive ourselves as free,
Convinced that no mere objects could
Behave in terms of bad and good.
To you, we mannikins seem less than live,
because our consciousness is that of dummies,
made to sit on laps of gods and mouth their wit;
Are you, our transcendental gods,
likewise dangled from your rods,
and need, to show spontaneous charm,
some higher god’s inserted arm?
We seem to form a nested set,
with each the next one’s marionette, who, if you asked him, would insist that he’s the last ventriloquist.
—Theodore Melnechuk