Fascination

How we see things is crucial.

Over the weekend, I got to spend time with a really old friend of mine that I care about very deeply. She, her brother, and her friend came and surfed my couch, and then I hung out with them at her grandparents house in Virginia where I became the couch surfer. In the usual rounds of catching up and getting to know new friends, she kept wanting to take pictures. I, of course, made fun of her for it and mentioned that I hated being in pictures.

On a side note, I'm not sure why I see a need to make fun of something like taking pictures. I think it's a really great thing. I suppose I just need to find something about everyone that I can tease them about. What that says about me, I'm not sure.

Somewhere along the way, I mentioned that I see everyday life as a story, people as characters, conversations as dialog. I can never really turn that off or step back from viewing the world as it would be written down. I think, perhaps, that's why I read so deeply into everything or see meaning in things that should simply be commonplace. She responded that she saw the world through a camera lens. Everyday events became snapshots, memories were captured in frames.

It got me thinking about the way everyone views the world. I mean this literally - not about our viewpoints or opinions - but on how we mechanically see things. What colors the way we are able to see the world? Is it our art? Or language? Will a painter think of life as a blank canvas the way I see it as a scene from a book? Will a business man see the world as opportunity costs and efficiency scales?

Moving beyond occupation, do our core beliefs structure the world differently for all of us? I imagine that our motives and aspirations can clog up the works.

While living in Los Angeles, I noted that a lot of the people were interested in making connections that would benefit themselves in some way, but the manner in which they went about it was always focused on people. Here in DC, it seems like those niceties are thrown out the window in favor for blatant business card swapping. People meet people to use them for personal gain. Maybe some people in DC view other humans as purely business connections - devoid of any real humanity beyond helping them advance in their careers.

Certainly, there are some men and women out there that see members of the opposite gender as targets instead of people. There are many ways that we flatten the image of a person down to a concept or goal. I'm sure we do the same for most everything in life.

I would say that we need to start seeing people as people - but I'm not even sure what that means exactly.

The only thing I'm capable of doing at this point is questioning how I see the world and why. What mechanical things influence my eyesight, what goals I have that blur my standard vision.