F. SEEING VERSUS OBSERVING

A story is told about my erstwhile shirt-tail relative Sherlock, that he and his friend Dr. Watson went on a camping and hiking trip together.  They had gone to bed and were lying there looking up at the stars.  Holmes said, "Watson, look up.  What do you see?" "I see thousands of stars," Watson replied.

"And what does this mean to you?" inquired Holmes.  "Well," said Watson, "I guess it means we'll have another nice day tomorrow.  What does it mean to you, Holmes."  Holmes replied, "To me it means someone has stolen our tent." 

Holmes had frequent opportunity to say to his friend, "My dear Watson: You see, but you do not observe."  It's easy to see superficially.  Observing is seeing in depth.  One of the characters in Richard Llewellyn's None But the Lonely Heart  says, "I was out walking one day and in the distance I saw an animal.  I came up closer and saw it was a man.  I came up still closer and saw it was my brother."   Observing comes not just by decreasing the distance, but by increasing the attention.  The world we're living in has made that more difficult.  Linda Stone, a Microsoft researcher, has spoken of what she calls "continuous partial attention," which means that "while you're answering your e-mail and talking to your child, your cell-phone rings and you're having a conversation.  You re now involved in a continuous  flow of interactions in which you can only partially concentrate on any one of them." 

The schedule we have and the multiplicity of tasks at hand, lead us to settling for tunnel vision most of the time causing us to miss many of the signals around us which would help is better understand what is happening.  We need to tame a point of cultivating broad-field vision so that we will not just see, but observe.  Buddhists speak of the importance of "mindfulness"– being always aware.  I think that means looking beneath the surface and between the lines.

Ben Hecht has said "Trying to determine what's going on in the world by reading a newspaper is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."  If we are really to observe what's going on in the world we must be attuned to all sorts of sources.   

Maybe you've thought of ways to look beneath the surface to discern what's going on these days.  For example, what do contemporary tastes in music and films and TV indicate about what is happening to our culture? 

    Any thoughts on what sort of adults the youth you're growing up with are likely to become?

    Have you some sound ideas on how the people of other countries view the United States and why? 

    How do you think other people view you?  

In a class in "music appreciation," the teacher asked, "What's the difference between listening and hearing?"  After awhile a wise student suggested, "I think listening is wanting to hear.   I think that's the same difference between seeing and observing.  


NEXT TIME:  SOME THINGS REALLY NEED CHANGING

TOOLS AND APPROACHES  - F

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