Who Do You See?

Whether at home or in your office, at your desk, in the gym, at the store--wherever you go--do you notice the people around you? Who do you see? Who do you see most?

Husband? Wife? Child? One child more than another child?
Friend? Co-worker?

Who do you see most? Who do you notice? Do you notice people you know and people you don’t? Ok, so you notice everyone--who do you see? When I look across the street I see one guy trying to be his next door neighbor and I get sad.

Look at that guy across the street, or the guy crossing the street. What do you notice about him?

Sometimes I wish I were like Sherlock Holmes, who in a glance can find all he needs to know about a person. Give Holmes 14 seconds and he understands. Rarely he’s wrong, but what a skill to have!

I think we’ve lost something, in the way we perceive. Too many filters. We’ve failed to notice. We notice people but fail to see them. People have matters on their heart and mind. They are happy or sad for a reason. They have a purpose or none at all. I see people who understand themselves and I see people who don’t. I see people who understand other people and I see people who don’t. I see people in masks.

There is concept attributed to the Japanese (not sure how true that is), that everyone has three faces: one shown to the world; one shown to family and friends; and one nobody sees but you. This is the true “you.”

I see people as ambassadors of the the worlds they create in themselves, each one living out his or her world against the bubble of another. Sometimes, like mathematical subsets, one’s world may include another, but each one stands alone. Worlds combine like Venn-diagrams, overlapping and changing the overall color of everything: culture, society, family, one another . . .