Clear Seeing
Surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects, living in our ideas, not one in a million ever sees the objects which are actually around them…Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, – the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountain-top through some new vista, – this is wealth enough for one afternoon.
Henry David Thoreau – Personal Journal, 1861
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When you look at a flower, you may or may not actually see the flower. Indeed, the flower is right there in front of you, but your mind may be elsewhere. You could be thinking a million other thought possibilities…What am I going to have for lunch today? Did I remember to check the oil in the lawnmower? Perhaps the Red Sox and Cubs will play each other in the World Series this year. What is the distance between New York City and the moon? Our continuous stream of thought accompanies us from moment to moment and day to day until (over time) it begins to shape and define who we are.
We think we are seeing clearly, but are we really? With each thought we are adding a subtle layer of distancing from ourselves to the object we are looking at. Each layer removes us, bit by bit, from a direct experience of what is occurring around us. Over time we acclimate to this process until we no longer notice it’s even happening. When was the last time you drank a glass of water without thinking about anything but the drinking of the water itself? Each of us live in the same world; the world of trees, vegetables, automobiles and charge cards, but no two of us see it alike. Our experience is a uniquely personal combination of our own layering. Thoreau encourages us to return to a clear seeing, a seeing that is not complicated by our own thinking. Thinking itself is fine, just don’t overthink. It’s the extra layer of overthinking that starts to become counterproductive and makes life cumbersome.
As summer has arrived, allow for leisurely afternoons of cold lemonade sipped slowly under blue skies, white clouds floating in air.
Watching the clouds,
Dave