It took me a long time to figure out the meaning of the little triangles at intersections here in the Netherlands.  I thought they might have something to do with determining who had the right-of-way in a given situation... but for the first few years I was hear I had it all backwards in my mind.

For some reason, I had developed this mental image of a wall.  The flat sides of the triangles all arranged with a very small amount of space in between them seemed to represent some kind of "wall" that was supposed to stop oncoming traffic and alllow safe passage for those on the other side of the wall, where the spaces between the triangles were wider.  Thus in the image on the left, I would have assumed that traffic flowing from the right side of the picture would have to stop for a pedestrian or bicyclist passing through the intersection from the foreground to the background.  It all made sense in my mind.

Unfortunately, it was completely incorrect.

It's kind of funny (or scary) to realize how clueless I was.  When I learned that my perception had been incorrect, I tried to concoct new visual images to help me remember the correct interpretation for these signs.  I tried thinking of the "wall" in reverse (i.e. the "wall of impassability" becoming the "wall of safe passage") -- but that didn't really work too well.  Then I tried to think of the triangles as tiny spikes that threatened to puncture the wheels of anyone who did not stop to allow for the other traffic to have its right-of-way (this image helped a little bit more, and I went with this memory device for perhaps six months to a year).  But only some time later -- after a good three or four years of living in the Netherlands -- did I finally make the connection that the little triangles were, in fact, little yield signs.

Perhaps you knew this all along, and you're thinking, "You dummy, Eric, of course they're yield signs. Everybody can see they're clearly yield signs."  But that's just the thing.  It's not so clear to everybody.  Some people have major mental blocks that only allow them to interpret a given situation in a certain way.  And that's the way it's been for all-time... and probably will be for all-time to come.

It just gives me hope to realize that so many of the things we don't understand -- about God, about each other, about different cultures, and everything -- may not be a matter of complete incomprehensibility or foolish people selfishly clinging to their lies... It may just be that someone needs to shift their perspective to see things in the way they should have been seen all along.