Seen and Unseen

There is plenty of material out there on the reliability of witnesses’ testimonies. Ask five people to recount the story of the same incident they all were present for and you will get 5 variations on what actually happened. That’s understandable for an unanticipated event that people weren’t necessarily prepared for or paying close attention to. But what about those things to which we believe we are paying attention?  We construct our own realities, at the cost of some around us.

We see those things and people who are part of our circle. Those people, things, ideas, we love or like we see. We choose what and whom we see. This means then, that we also choose what and whom we do not see. It is from these starting points that we construct our realities.

We build our realities around those things, people, ideas that we see and like, excluding others that we do not like. Doing this repeatedly over time, the others are rendered more and more invisible until we stop noticing those things and people altogether.

We further build our realities by casting that or those which we do see in a positive light, sometimes not even realizing that the positive picture we’ve cast them in is not accurate. Yet, that or those which we do not see fall deeper into the shadows. They grow darker, until we have set up an inaccurate reality of light and dark, seen and unseen. And then we tend to stay in the light we’ve created, that’s our reality.

But it’s incomplete. By choosing what and whom we see, and also choosing what and whom we don’t see, we create an incomplete reality, a partial picture. We need a complete picture. The full reality needs to include what and whom we have pushed into the darkness of the shadows, that which we have rendered invisible by not seeing, and those ideas, things, people who push our comfort level, stretch our wineskins.

What or whom do we not see? Why? Have we fallen into the habit of putting some in the shadows, never to be seen again or only as the other?

The complete reality needs both the seen and the unseen…lest we deprive ourselves of the beauty of the complete picture.