I was born with busy eyes.
\nIt\u2019s not my fault, it\u2019s just the way things are.
\nColour-wise, they are blue-grey. Curiously enough, I have it from a reliable source that they remained the same colour since my birth \u2013 eyes that have never grown up in sum, which likely explains why I see \u00a0 the world the way I do.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m not complaining, it\u2019s just that they are hard to keep up with at times. One ends up doing a lot of explaining, usually about just what exactly the devil one is doing in restricted areas, on the wrong side of high fences or locked gates, at the top of stairwells clearly posted Not Open to Public.
\nBut I was just tagging along after my eyes, I explain, I can\u2019t leave them to wander on their own. (This rarely carries much weight, so I rely on the old adage \u2013 when in Rome, mumble something in English, you\u2019ll likely get off lighter.)
\nThey\u2019re very hard to keep an eye on besides, despite their being housed firmly where you\u2019d expect them.
\nThey always seem to be wandering over textures, judging light and the thickness of the air. Chasing motes and dandelion seeds, calculating the flight of birds. They are continually going astray. I never know where I\u2019ll find them.
\nThey\u2019re a little shy, that\u2019s why they skirt warily around the edges of other eyes, just in case they slip and plummet down to whatever deep waters are awaiting, but otherwise they\u2019re fearless. No sky is too big to scan, no detail to small to focus on.
\nWhen in company, I am continually having to explain why I\u2019m so slow. Well, I stammer, there was a statue back there, yes I know it\u2019s been there for ages and it\u2019ll be there tomorrow, but that\u2019s just the point. Maybe tomorrow it\u2019ll rain, or there\u2019ll be sun backlighting it or there\u2019ll be different clouds. I just had to make sure I saw it properly today.
\nIt\u2019s just that there\u2019s a lot in front of my eyes to look after. (I\u2019ve tried closing them, but that\u2019s no help, there is a lot to see behind closed eyes. Look at any city, all those closed shutters \u2013 doesn\u2019t mean that life has gone on hold behind them.)
\nThey are fairly reliable, thankfully, they do keep themselves on the road, do check the rear-view mirror, the speedometer and the traffic, but when they\u2019ve got no serious assignment, that\u2019s when they just take off on their own.
\nSO much to look at, and only the two of us, they must think. So much moss on trees, so many trees in a forest, such a variety of leaves for all seasons, such endearing smile lines at the corners of mouths, such grace in hands and strides\u2026 It\u2019s a full-time job to get all that seen.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s quite a responsibility, too.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always loved the story from the life of Carl Gustav Jung. During a tour of the American West, he spends some time in company of (I think) a Pueblo tribe. Slowly, he come to realize that the entire tribe, every single member, shares a secret that no outsider knows. After much persuasion and cajoling (and possibly a certain amount of alcohol and an equal lack of scruples), he badgers an elder of the tribe until the wise man exclaims : Crazy white men, you have no idea, when you\u2019ve finally killed the last of our People, who is going to get up to greet the sun, who is going to make sure it journeys safely across the sky, and who will bid it farewell until the next dawn ? You will destroy the world.
\nIndeed. Now there is a good reason to keep an eye on things.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why my eyes are so busy. It\u2019s easy to forget to LOOK at things. It\u2019s restful to be in familiar surroundings, so familiar that eyes are look without seeing. When you recognize everything, what\u2019s left to look at ?\u00a0 Things must be looked carefully at in order to exist. Besides, that\u2019s where stories come from\u2026
\nIt\u2019s a big job, but somebody\u2019s got to do it.<\/p>\n
When my eyes do take a break, they prefer the horizon. That\u2019s where they go when they feel the need a rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Or the Unbeatable Brightness of Seeing. I was born with busy eyes. It\u2019s not my fault, it\u2019s just the way things are. Colour-wise, they are blue-grey. Curiously enough, I have it from a reliable source that they remained the same colour since my birth \u2013 eyes that have never grown up in sum, which likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[454],"class_list":["post-1739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","tag-carl-gustav-jung"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PY8Y-s3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}