A surprise present that I couldn't see

Yesterday I gave my car to my girlfriend Alison so she could be free to drive around and not be stuck at home all day (it was her birthday, so she wanted to be able to do fun things of her own while I was at work). Which means in the morning she drove me to work and dropped me off, then did her thing all day, then picked me up at the end of the day and took me home. On the drive home, she said she had a present for me. Considering it wasn't my birthday — it was hers — I was a little confused.

So we get to my house and as I'm unlocking the front door, she says "Ok now close your eyes!" And I'm thinking that she must have gone out Christmas shopping and some of the stuff was for me, still sitting exposed and naked of wrapping paper on the living room floor. So I chuckled a little and obliged, and she led me into the house like Ray Charles onto the stage.

I stood there waiting, continuously reassuring her that I wasn't cheating and did in fact have my eyes closed. She scooted me back inch by inch until I felt the couch behind my legs, and I helplessly plopped down onto it. Then she said "Ok, open your eyes!" And I did. I immediately looked to the floor in front of me, expecting some interesting gift to be waiting my joyous discovery. Nothing. I looked around the room — the old-school giant TV of the non-flat-screen variety was still sitting there on its wooden cabinet. The Christmas tree was new, but we had put that up together the day before, so nothing surprising about it. I looked under the tree, and there was something new — a lot more needles than there were the night before, probably not the great surprise she was preparing me for. I looked on the walls, and the same artwork that I painted myself still hung there. Uhhh...

I looked to my right, and saw the throw blanket that's usually draped across the couch was this time rolled up into a neat little roll at the end of the couch... THE COUCH! The couch was new! Holy crap, I was sitting on a lovely espresso brown microfiber cushion that belonged to a long sectional couch. She told me she finally found a great couch on craigslist and had picked it up that day. The thing was in brand new condition, and apparently she paid $50 for it, and that's what she had used the car for that day. I hadn't seen my new surprise because I was sitting on it. Duh.

Sitting here this morning thinking about that comical moment, a funny analogy came to mind. There's so much in this world that we'll never see or even be aware of, because we're sitting in the middle of it. Living our entire lives trapped inside the mushy neuron marshmallow we call our brain and piloting our bodies through two eyeballs is so limiting, and we will NEVER be able to truly step away from it and look at it from a different perspective. It just makes me realize how much we don't know about the nature of life and the universe.

So I think all speculations about such things, whether they come from science or religion, are welcome as long as you maintain an open mind that you don't know everything. Because if you can't see the plush cushions of destiny, or the warm velvety fringe of string theory, or the soft fluffy throw pillows of God, it's because you're already sitting on them.