Eye on The Wall
I’ve lived here for 8 months, and today, just now, is the first time I’ve noticed this. It’s on the outside of my back door.
One has to wonder who drew it. Was it drawn? Did the dirt randomly manage to arrange itself in that shape?
Who tried to clean it off the wall? Why did they do that? I can imagine a teenager drawing it, his mother seeing it and telling him to clean it up. His half-hearted effort left what you see.
And how did I go eight months without ever noticing it? What made me notice it today?
Interestingly, I was reflecting at that moment on the fact that I can be insensitive sometimes. I made someone uncomfortable this week without ever thinking about that aspect of what I was doing. I don’t like that about myself, and it’s something I need to change. I’m working on it. I’ve apologized, of course, and I’ve taken the necessary steps to undo, as much as possible, the damage I did. That seems to me to be the right thing to do.
Other people’s feelings matter just as much as mine do. And, if I don’t think something through far enough, I am likely to cause consequences that are predictable, but I didn’t bother to see. Sometimes, I have to admit, it’s because I don’t WANT to see them. I want to do whatever I want, and the idea of something getting in the way is one I don’t generally entertain. I need to ask myself a few more questions before I act, I suspect.
So, I was thinking about all that while having a cigarette in the back yard. And I got up to come in.
And then I found myself looking at what appears to be a clouded eye drawn on the wall by the door. I must have looked at that spot a thousand times in the last 8 months, but I didn’t observe.
Now, I’m the first to shout that correlation isn’t necessarily causation, and I am keeping that firmly in mind today. But, having said that, I wonder if there is a connection between what we perceive, and what we’re thinking. Was I seeing an eye because I had been introspecting?
What if it’s not an eye? It could be a fish. If that’s the case, the whole thing falls apart. It’s still interesting, I guess, but I have to go a long way to find a fish metaphor that goes anywhere. I perceived an eye, and probably because that’s what my mind needed me to see at that moment.
Nevertheless, there is something to be said for human perception. I like the things I’m perceiving, even if those things are flaws. If I can fix them, I can be a better man. And, isn’t that, finally, what we should all try to be?