We All Have Blind Spots
Seeing some old pictures online of the house where I lived in college for my senior year got me thinking about the people that I used to live with. I'm friends with many of them on Facebook, but in that context, they're all just people that I once knew at some point in the past. It's rare that I actually reflect on the days when we were all living together, and think back to the daily interactions that I used to have with almost twenty people who were initially strangers but who gradually, via those interactions, became friends and acquaintances. Now they've joined the ranks of my friends on Facebook, where the people from my past have all been smooshed into one aggregated blob of people. Online, it's easy to forget the origins of each one.
But yesterday, someone posted some pictures of this old college house and a few people sitting around dying Easter eggs, and this got me really thinking about the days when I lived there, five years ago. Back then, I was a very different person (in some ways, maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part), so remembering my experiences with these people is as good a means as any for me to get some perspective, and to reflect on what I've learned.
One general lesson that I took from these reflections: we all have our blind spots. Our brains have this neat way of tricking us into thinking that we've got the whole picture, and that we aren't missing any details. But we're always missing something, whether by pure blind denial or selective perception. We choose to ignore our own motives that are less than noble, and ignore the consequences of our actions when they turn out badly. And it's very easy to notice the shortcomings of others while ignoring our own.
Ten years ago I wrote a poem (one of six I've written in my life, and, like most poems, all six were terrible) that had candles as characters. They were given sight by having their wicks lit by their owner. The flame on top of their cylindrical wax bodies acted as their one eye to the world. I ended the poem with the observation that a light source cannot see the shadows it casts, but that it can see the shadows of others, and likened this to our own perception of ourselves. So it goes.
This leaves me continually wondering: what am I missing about myself right now? Maybe time will tell.
But yesterday, someone posted some pictures of this old college house and a few people sitting around dying Easter eggs, and this got me really thinking about the days when I lived there, five years ago. Back then, I was a very different person (in some ways, maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part), so remembering my experiences with these people is as good a means as any for me to get some perspective, and to reflect on what I've learned.
One general lesson that I took from these reflections: we all have our blind spots. Our brains have this neat way of tricking us into thinking that we've got the whole picture, and that we aren't missing any details. But we're always missing something, whether by pure blind denial or selective perception. We choose to ignore our own motives that are less than noble, and ignore the consequences of our actions when they turn out badly. And it's very easy to notice the shortcomings of others while ignoring our own.
Ten years ago I wrote a poem (one of six I've written in my life, and, like most poems, all six were terrible) that had candles as characters. They were given sight by having their wicks lit by their owner. The flame on top of their cylindrical wax bodies acted as their one eye to the world. I ended the poem with the observation that a light source cannot see the shadows it casts, but that it can see the shadows of others, and likened this to our own perception of ourselves. So it goes.
This leaves me continually wondering: what am I missing about myself right now? Maybe time will tell.