As I rested my head on the bus window on the way home tonight, I had a little thought: our eyes are smarter than our minds. Yes, I know they're connected. Just let me have this. Bear with me, (I think) it's going somewhere.
Today was a bleak, rainy spring day.
The whole city was dressed in gray colors. No sun in sight, just small splashes of color from the blooming trees, traffic lights and storefronts. As I watched the world go by from my bus window, I mostly saw a gray canvas.
Yet I noticed that my eyes were drawn to every single pop of color they could find. Before I knew it, I was tracking all the light in sight.
And I wondered: why can’t our minds do the same?
Why do they insist on focusing on the gray canvas - the negatives, the bad luck, the failures - instead of actively seeking out the light, the pops of color, the good?
We’re taught to not trust our eyes, to not take things at face value. And for good reason. Appearances can be deceiving, they can fool us and lead us astray. We’re better off looking beyond what’s on the surface.
In a way, I think our eyes are the part of us that has not fully grown up.
They’re still innocent, childlike. They still see the world as a massive playground, a place to be explored, admired, understood. They still ask questions. They keep things simple.
Our adult minds, on the other hand, have it harder.
They’re burdened by experience, weighed down by preconceptions. They think they know it all already. The world is no longer a playground for them; instead, it’s a giant maze they have to navigate safely so as to avoid disappointment, heartbreak and pain.
They always try to look beyond the surface, find ulterior motives, anticipate bad outcomes. Because they’ve seen it all play out before.
Maybe some information we collect through our eyes gets lost in translation. It gets over-complicated. We always find a way to interpret it so as to fit neatly into our own ready-made narratives. To make sense.
People say “don’t grow up, it’s a trap” - but we can’t really help it, can we? Time flies and we watch it go by, helplessly. All we can do is try to safeguard the tiniest bit of childlike innocence we have left.
And trust our eyes every once in a while. The might know better, sometimes.
You are absolutely correct about adults navigating the world to avoid disappointment, heartbreak and pain. Not to mention all the programming about what an 'adult' is and how an 'adult' should behave. What a great reminder to follow that which lights us up :)