What was formerly thought to be a Raven, but forevermore shall be known as a crow

In the bowels of the Grand Canyon, I looked above me to see a soaring, black outline. After climbing out, a croaking call grabbed my attention and I looked up into a pine tree to see a massive bird. My first raven. I love the raven. Just something about it. Only, I had thought for years that I had seen plenty. They're black birds, right? Well they are so unlike anything I'd seen before, I realized any previous sighting was just mistaken identity. I was calling a really big crow a "raven."

Ravens are so much bigger. Their call is less like a "caw" and more like a "croak" or even a hoarse bark. There is some kind of irony in my error. Some sort of deeper truth. How often do we ascribe a certain value to things, only to confront the real thing later, and be so awed that we feel like idiots for ever thinking our previous experience could even come close to comparing?

So I think I'll write a poem about that someday. "Yet knowing how way leads on to way..."

But today I'm confused. Comparing birds (incorrectly) is one thing, but comparing people and ideas is quite another. I'm certain that there are 2 ways to make yourself feel really terrible:
1) Look at yourself a lot
2) Look around at other people a lot
And yet that's what we spend most of our lives doing. There are people in pain. People with problems. I'm in pain. I have problems. She hates him. He hates me. We're good at this. They're good at that. I want to be good at their thing. It's wearisome.

As I look at other people and hear them think, I wish there was some way to...I don't know; do something more that just talk. Almost as if we could feel together. Share not just words or even ideas, but understandings. "(to) Know and be fully known."

And as I'm thinking through this, I have friends who don't believe in God. Friends who do, but don't really like Him. Friends who love him, but don't really know him (if that's possible; you end up loving your idea, not Him) or don't emulate him. Friends who love Jesus, but want to love other gods, because that's a "generous" orthodoxy. (Maybe not that; ...love Jesus, and want to be lovey-dovey with people who love other gods, so they can somehow love Jesus too...or instead. Or something...) Friends who have a different god. Friends who have lots of different gods. Friends who are so smart, they're their own gods. Friends who are so brilliant, they don't need a god. And a guy named Joseph Campbell. A guy who thought that everybody was talking about the same thing anyway, and it's not even god. Just a jumble of ideals, transcendental human longings. A guy who thought if we gave up god and religion and just embraced myth and the underlying reality, life would be peachy.

I desperately want to think about things. To understand things. People. Is there time for a world of understanding? Is there room for everything?

And when I end my posts with lots of questions, I know it's time to stop. ...Lest I fall victim to looking at other blogs who get tons of responses and suffer insecurity that I might not be fascinating or insightful or good enough. That, or other desperate people aren't reading.