I live at the intersection of two people of which one can almost name the primary colors and needs a little guidance when putting clothes ensembles together. The other can recognize basically any shade of any color. There is a test for this – it is like the perfect pitch for musicians.
It is easy to get judgmental. To a musician, hearing tone-deaf people sing along is torture, but perhaps the tone-deaf person was plagued by ear infections as a child and now has an eardrum with scars all around. Would you wittingly heap extra shame on top of that? For the color-impaired, part of our ability to distinguish differences may stem from the mix of “hardware” in the back of our eyes. Would you wittingly heap extra shame on top of that?
This piece on colors by Marlene Sinick; The Many Shades of Green caught my attention. It talks about another source of difference stemming from exposure.
The famous idea that “people whose life depends on not falling through ice have more interest in the nature of ice and snow and hence more words for ice and snow than those whose only exposure to ice is in their cocktail” comes to mind. Might the same apply to the ability to name colors? If you are a hunter-gatherer, and some berries are red and a great food source and others are red and poisonous, you start getting picky about the way red is not just red. If you can eat the sage but not the poison oak, you have a natural interest in knowing the difference between those two plants. If all your food comes from the supermarket, the chance that you unwittingly bring home poisonous berries is very, very small and probably involves the flower section of the supermarket.
As I started writing this piece, it came to me that the difference between looking and seeing is caring. And there is a similar difference between hearing and listening. If I don’t care about you, I may hear what you say, but I don’t listen with the intent of strengthening our connection. I don’t listen for what you don’t say. I listen from my self-centered focus, not for your interest.
Is that not the same when I look but don’t see?
Marlene Sinicki’s piece is on getting a deeper relationship with nature by noticing that green is not just one thing. Thus prompted, I looked at my little lemon tree in a pot that is trying to suck up sunlight at day while at times being challenged by night temperatures around freezing. As I rejoice over the lemons slowly turning from green to yellow, I am concerned over some leaves that also slowly are turning from green to yellow. I have had lemon trees for ages, but in a pot is different from when they grow in your backyard, and I am learning how to care for this particular “baby”. It provides me with so much joy – lemons being the least of it – as the flowers entice the hummingbirds to visit.
What more do you notice if you look at your surroundings from a mindset of care – places, people, nature – than if you just let your eyes graze over it?
To care is that this person, thing, idea… matters to you. This article about mattering shares a model of being Noticed, Affirmed, and Needed. You do know how it feels to feel seen like that, don’t you? Probably your grandmother (your nan) – or a special teacher – noticed something about you that made you shine. Pay it forward.
“Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.”
~ Urie Bronfenbrenner
In a world characterized by continuous changes, constantly distracted by screens and devices, we are naturally led to remain on the surface. We feel like we don’t have time to go deeper, and sometimes we just lack the tools to do so. The simple act of stopping and observing can become a powerful antidote to superficiality and inattention.
A mindful attitude cultivates observation, intentionally or consciously, with attention.
Attention is almost synonymous with awareness, as tension, interest, concentration towards everything that concerns us and surrounds us.
Intention implies the intent and the will to observe with critical thinking.
It is like saying that observation can be the key to understanding the deepest meaning of what surrounds us, otherwise we risk continuing to see what we want or expect to see, because it is more comfortable, because perhaps it hurts us less.
When we observe, however, we enter the reality that we have in front of us, we make it our own. We immerse ourselves in it and almost involuntarily abandon all our mental constructs.
Observing opens up dimensions for us that would not be accessible through conventional reasoning produced by our own mind. This openness is what really allows us to fully understand what surrounds us and therefore to understand its essence and potential. Observation, precisely because of its exploratory nature, is the key that opens the doors to creativity and innovation; it reveals what we do not know, and is, consequently, the basis of any progress.
I agree that attention is the first step, Aldo, and we live far too much on our screens and in our heads – just stopping to really observing what is around us is a powerful way to center ourselves.
What we take away, however, all depends on what we think (here is that thinking again) is important.
Just the other day I had a walk and talk with a friend. A butterfly fluttered by and I reflected on how the Monarch colonies had completely collapsed, probably the butterflies had been blown off to sea during migration. From last year to this year the population has been decimated by a factor 10. So when we saw two butterflies that found one another and did that little circle dance they do, my friend said he would never again see two butterflies flying together the same way.
I share your thoughts.