Eyes Wide Open
Last night, Kent, Joe and Aimee were over at my flat and at some point we started talking about how odd it feels the first time you hear yourself in a recording and realize that you sound totally different to yourself than you do to the world.
I started thinking about it more later. How kind of bizarre it is that in so many ways we know ourselves less than others do. In the physical way, for sure. Even though I’m me and I can’t escape me so I’m with myself ALL the time, I don’t actually ever really know what I even look like.
Think about it. We rely on mirrors, but our reflections show us all things opposite of how they actually are. And pictures hardly count since most people have mastered the art of posing. And even candid shots are unreliable. Just think how different you can look from picture to picture. What if what you consider a “horrible shot” is what you actually look like?
Plus, we’re three-dimensional-- and none of our viewing-ourselves-mediums catch that. So I don’t really ever know what I look like from behind, from the side, etc.
Just this morning I was having a chat with Vafa and Natalie at work and Vafa pointed out that at the end of my sentences I start talking out of the side of my mouth. “What! NO WAY!” Clearly, I would know if I did that. When Natalie giggled and nodded her head that it was true, I couldn’t believe it. I’m 24. How in 24 years have I never known I did that?
Anyway, so I was thinking about how every atom in existence is for our training, and God has created everything with specific reasons and purposes—and I wonder if the reason our bodies were designed in such a way was to ensure that we could only look out on the world, not at ourselves; to remind us in the most basic and fundamental way possible that our orientation should be outward looking. That we were not created to focus on ourselves. He’s made it physically impossible. Could the lesson be any clearer?
Look away from yourself, He seems to say in His design. Look at others. Care for others.
“Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer to the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.”
I started thinking about it more later. How kind of bizarre it is that in so many ways we know ourselves less than others do. In the physical way, for sure. Even though I’m me and I can’t escape me so I’m with myself ALL the time, I don’t actually ever really know what I even look like.
Think about it. We rely on mirrors, but our reflections show us all things opposite of how they actually are. And pictures hardly count since most people have mastered the art of posing. And even candid shots are unreliable. Just think how different you can look from picture to picture. What if what you consider a “horrible shot” is what you actually look like?
Plus, we’re three-dimensional-- and none of our viewing-ourselves-mediums catch that. So I don’t really ever know what I look like from behind, from the side, etc.
Just this morning I was having a chat with Vafa and Natalie at work and Vafa pointed out that at the end of my sentences I start talking out of the side of my mouth. “What! NO WAY!” Clearly, I would know if I did that. When Natalie giggled and nodded her head that it was true, I couldn’t believe it. I’m 24. How in 24 years have I never known I did that?
Anyway, so I was thinking about how every atom in existence is for our training, and God has created everything with specific reasons and purposes—and I wonder if the reason our bodies were designed in such a way was to ensure that we could only look out on the world, not at ourselves; to remind us in the most basic and fundamental way possible that our orientation should be outward looking. That we were not created to focus on ourselves. He’s made it physically impossible. Could the lesson be any clearer?
Look away from yourself, He seems to say in His design. Look at others. Care for others.
“Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer to the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.”
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