The Back of The Napkin
Dan Roam makes some revolutionary remarks in his latest book The Back of The Napkin.
The majority of us can look at life very well. We are well trained in the art of using our eyes to their fullest extent. If you can’t look at the world around you perfectly, (20/20) you go the optometrist, and you get glasses or contacts or even have surgery in order to correct your vision woes. We improve our looking capabilities by playing sports and doing hand-eye-coordination games. We protect our eyes by wearing sun glasses or hats. We use our eyes all of the time. The eyes identify us. Your eye color is listed on your drivers license. Our eyes allow us to look. Every moment we are absorbing information about the world around us. Looking is open. Looking requires little effort, it happens naturally. We all love to look.
The difficulty doesn’t rest with looking. The difficulty comes with seeing. Looking is initial. We look, we collect everything around us, and then we choose whether or not to see. Once the information has been looked at (collected) we process and organize that information into useful, reliable and wonderful patterns and problem solving ideas. We can all look at something and know that there is an issue or problem or challenge that could be met. The challenge is taking that looking knowledge and developing it into working ideas that meet or solve a particular need. Everyone can look, yet very few choose to see. Seeing is deeper; it requires time and energy. Seeing demands a response to what you are looking at. Seeing will move you. If what you look at doesn’t move you to act ( to get up and do something you love or improve a situation you are concerned about!) than you are simply looking. If you live your life in a mundane, ordinary, habitual pattern (and this bothers you), than realize that you are choosing to only look at life around you. If you choose to break out, to solve problems, to face community issues, to help those in need around you, to reach out to those less fortunate, to meet challenges head on and to solve problems, than you choose to see the world around you.
The choice is yours: Will you look or will you see.
