The Penrose Tribar

Growing up going to church, I've always identified the Holy Trinity with a triangle. I cannot quite pinpoint why, when or who but one Sunday School lesson, someone drew a triangle to explain the Holy Trinity and it stuck ever since. 

Then I went to school and when Math became a bitch, a triangle (delta) meant the change in variable of an equation. Similarly, when I took Chemistry, the triangle represented change. 

A penrose triangle, or the tribar, however, falls in the other end of the spectrum. Its an optical illusion. It's impossible. As far as my thoughts are concerned, it completely contradicts religion, equation and science. 

Which to me, is a downright hilarious irony. 

I'll be upfront, I didn't initially have much of a reason with the penrose. I just liked the idea of an optical illusion. Not that I need a reason now, but, I just basically reached an epiphany on how very apt a penrose is for me. 

Look at it as a whole, and it pretty much looks like any other triangle. Go into details, focus on the corners and you start noticing all it's impossibility. Religion has basically been a paradoxical topic for me. The church that taught me love, hope and kindness holds the very same ostentatious people that do not practise what they preached. Look at the church on the whole and what is there to fault? People eager to know your troubles, a higher power that loves you very much and so do they. Focus on the details and all you really have is a bad jumble of contradictions. Don't tell me to love thy neighbour one second and shun that gay couple the next. Don't tell me that God loves me but I'll be condemned to eternal damnation if I can't follow His ways. Don't. 

The church I grew up in sparked a chain reaction of scepticism I have to almost everything afterwards. Sceptical to religious people and their intentions. Sceptical to whether the Math equation on my O level's paper was actually solvable. Sceptical about my culinary potential. Sceptical about whether or not I'll ever make my parents proud. Sceptical to whether I'll ever be sufficient for anyone to love and to feel enough. Sceptical about the myriad possibilities in life. 

Like I said, its not that I need a reason now and I still like the fact that it is just an optical illusion, but maybe if I choose not to look at the details, my penrose wont seem too impossible anymore. It could just be another triangle.