The illusion of there being an illusion/gaslighting/fiction/boy who cried wolf

I’m back on twitter after a long absence, having never, like many people, fully got to grips with the format. I’m told it’s a good way of staying in touch with what’s happening in the world at the moment. One of the more interesting things I came across was this image…

It’s a recognisable format. I’ve enjoyed optical illusions since I was a boy but it’s not clear where the illusion is here. It’s clearly adapted from this image which exploits the ambiguities in representing three dimensions in two..

What’s interesting is the comments. People are complaining that the images are ‘gaslighting’ people. In one regard, that’s exactly what they’re doing, but they’re doing so for humour, the humour derived from the absurd insistence that black is white. They say if you can’t see the illusion, to look closer. Some suggestable people even see illusions. Or are they joking? Others are clearly playing along to wind up those trying vainly to get the site admins to admit there is no illusion. “Gaslighting” is a strong word though. It is usually used in instances where somebody, perhaps a mentally abusive partner, makes the other question their sanity and reality, by insisting they turned the lights on when they didn’t or something similar. Or dimmed the lights and said they hadn’t changed. What spurs me on to reflect on this is mild gaslighting, if we must call it that, is the basis of my sense of humour, or at least a strand of it. I like playing with reality. I am interest in fiction as truth. I kid around and invent fabrications passed off as fact, but it is best when the person realises you are doing it, or rather they aren’t sure. I like the liminality of uncertainty. An idea exists in a kind of Schrödinger paradox, both true and not true until confirmed or debunked. This leads to a lot of Boy Who Cried Wolf problems, and also unfortunately to my friends sometimes feeling a bit silly that I’ve had them on, the onus of which is on me for exploiting their (gradually waning) trust. I have vowed to stop doing it, but habits are hard to kick, particularly when there is a psychological reason for them. I suspect my ‘humorous’ fictions are a kind of scattershot revenge at feeling confused and uncertain myself, about the purpose of life, the nature of reality, as well as my own purpose and fractured identity. Maybe this is one too many excuses, but it kind of makes sense to me. Still, when I get it back off people, I feel silly, like believing for years a friend was addicted to Lemsip. You couldn’t make it up.