This bird, well, my rendition of this bird, is called a Secretary.
Not being an ornithologist, I know nothing about the bird, but the look in this bird's eye caught my eye. Upon googling it I found out that it is a large raptor related to hawks and eagles, in other words, it's a bird of prey.
If the saying "the eyes are the window to the soul" has even a grain of truth in it, then in my view, put some sunglasses on cos I reckon this bird can look straight into our souls.
(Or, if you prefer, straight into the deepest parts of our being.)
Seeing, or being able to see, is something many of us probably take for granted most of the time and only when something happens that affect our ability to use our eyes, do we realize just important our eyes are. Often we rely on our eyes to determine whether something is "real" or not: "Well, not until I see it with my own eyes will I believe it, ...or "show me, and then I will accept it as true"....or "seeing is believing"...etc.
Problem is, according to those in the know, that we all see things differently even if we are looking at the same thing. The data we receive through our eyes has to be interpreted by us, our interpretations mostly rely on previous experiences, our previous experiences are defined by the words we use to define them with, the words we choose to define our experiences with depends on our definitions of those words, and so on.
It is possible to be "looking" without "seeing" .....just like it is possible to be hearing without listening. Our ears can hear background noises without listening, as in our ears picks up audio data even while we are for instance listening to someone speaking to us. When we look at something, we are directing our gaze at that something, as in even if we don't know exactly what it is we are looking at, we are still looking at it...as for example abstract art. Seeing, is when we look at something, interpret/perceive what we are seeing and have an understanding of what we interpret it to be.
Perhaps one could say: Looking is collecting visual data, seeing is interpreting that data and assigning meaning to it.
What we "see" has a lot to do with our mental filters, and with mental filters I mean our cognition's of the world we live in. Some of us may see the world through "rose-coloured glasses" (optimistically), some of us may see the world through darkened glasses (pessimistically), but if asked, most of us will say that we see the world as it is (realistically).
What do you see?
Is this a realistic interpretation of something?
What do you feel when you look at it?
What do you see?
Is this a realistic depiction?
What do you feel when you look at it?
Is this a sad or happy image?
Being able to understand and entertain the notion that it is possible for people to look at one thing yet come up with totally different understandings of what that thing is, is in my view probably one of mankind's biggest challenges because we have a tendency to view our own interpretations and perceptions as "real", as "obvious", as "how it is", and someone else telling us "nah, you are so wrong" is often perceived by us as very confrontational.
Some of us look at animals and see food, some of us see fellow living creatures.
Some of us look at trees and see furniture, some of us see the lungs of the planet.
Some of us look at insects and see unnecessary pests, some of us see crucial components to the ecosystems.
Some of us look at birds and see "flying vermin", some of us look at birds and see beauty.
Some of us look at human beings and see beings capable of unimaginable cruelty and destruction, some of us see beings capable of ingenuity and extraordinary feats of creativity and compassion.
"What we see depends mainly on what we look for..... In the same field that the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportsmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them."
(John Lubbock)
"When the heart is asleep the eyes only looks, but seeing awakens the heart."
(Oluwatobi Eccles)
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