LIFE THROUGH OUR EYES

REFLECTION ABOUT ON LOOKING BY ALEXANDRA HOROWITZ

The reading was a good eye-opener for me. Right at the beginning, she caught your attention. Funny that she caught your attention by explaining the phenomenon of attention and how we express it as human beings. We, as a reader can really connect with her and her experience. She describes her experience of when she went dog walking and noticed some details of her “block”.  Reading this you begin to think all the places you have been and all the details you miss. It’s like looking at a 360 camera but only viewing 150 degrees of it, which is more or less the human eyesight. It’s impossible to view everything at the same time. The attention is also filtered from the point of view of the person, everybody looks at the world differently and multiple people viewing exactly the same thing will have different answers when asked what it is. In the reading, she tells us the same kind of idea “There is a certain bias in every one's perspective that has been named, by the French, deformation professionnelle: the tendency to look at every context from the point of view of one's profession.”(Horowitz). My perception and attention of the world are biased since I’m a computer scientist, I tend to pay attention to technology-related items. Even with the utmost concentration, we as humans have sensory limits. We can only take so much information at a time, especially no when we are constantly bombarded with sensory overloads. Going on walks and even driving, I can notice very different things. When walking or driving around without destination you can view how the world, people, and buildings change. 

How your neighbors change and how your home changes. It’s strange to actively think of your attention, and upon reflecting, we do have small attention spans. Thanks to her dog, she began noticing different details and be able to “perceived ordinary elements I was missing” (Horowitz). Seeing life through another’s shoes can help you see new things and details that normally you would have missed. After reading this, I began to think about all the details I have missed and didn’t consider trough my life. Any experience or place have limitless points of view and meaning. As I said, two people can walk the same road each day but see different things in their paths. That’s why you always have to consider different points of view apart from your own. Sometimes you just have to clear your mind and erase your thoughts to find another meaning to your environment. Attention is a capacity that we all have and constantly changes, but we have the ability to turn it on. Each day now I will be more attentive to my surroundings and always consider different points of view and compliment them to my own. We tend to move through life with blinkers in our eyes without considering other options and stopping to look at his surroundings. We have to enjoy every inch of our existence and take in the world because even professionals or experts miss things.