I think the only thing I know about Henry David Throeau is that he spent time in the wood and wrote Walden's pond... The other day I came across a quote of his that struck me:
"It's not what you look at that matters,
it's what you see"
Which strikes me as being a very deep truth. We look at many things, but that isn't what matters... What matters is what we see when we look at things. So it's not the thing that we are looking at that is the issue... It is what we see, through all of our filters and interpretations and judgements. What we look at might not be what we see!! Which is a scary thought.... How often do we actually see what we look at? Or do we see other things... Do we see our story about the thing? Do we see our history about the thing? Do we ever look at something with fresh eyes, free of interpretations of any sort? I highly doubt it!
If I take his quote and modify it slightly... it becomes potent again in a different way...
"It's not who we look at that matters,
it's who we see"
We can look at a person... but do we really see the person... or do we see our judgements about the person, our history with that person, our emotions about that person? Do we actually see anyone for who they really are? We look at a person and immediately... immediately start putting them into a category... Ah yes, older person, grandmotherly type, has back issues, looking for a book for her grandchild perhaps, reminds me of so and so... I never liked so and so... I don't know that I like this woman"... All of that happens in a split second... faster than we can blink, our brains have looked, interpreted, categorized and sent us a message as to what we see... But the truth is... we rarely see, clearly see, what we are looking at....
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