Seeing with fresh eyes

Openness and discovery

Here’s a dramatic picture! I was driving one day and suddenly saw this cloud formation. To me, it looked like a dragon in the sky. I thought it was amazing. Happily, I was able to stop at a traffic light and quickly take this picture. The whole thing only lasted a couple of minutes. Then it was gone.

That moment relates to the “kairos” or opportune time I spoke about in a recent post. There are things which come quickly and one has to be ready for them. Part of being ready is cultivating openness. Don’t just expect the expected. Expect the unexpected (I know, that’s a paradox). Here a couple of sayings which I appreciate.

“The task is… not so much to see what no one else has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.” a saying attributed to Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel prize-winning Austrian physicist (1887-1961)

“My destination is no longer a place, rather it is a new way of seeing.” a saying attributed to Marcel Proust, French novelist, (1871-1922) particularly associated with his Remembrance of Things Past [cf. "The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes," Vol 5 of RTP]

If you only expect to see a cloud, that’s all you’ll see. But if you expect magic in any moment, you may be rewarded. A dragon may come to visit you.