The Power of Observation
How to get high on perception
If your attention was ever caught by a fascinating theme, you know the feeling of being sucked into a mental dialogue.
Your inner voice, usually wandering on its aimless distractions, suddenly clicks! Dropping through a vortex of questions that curiosity begs to scratch.
This synchronised state of mind is rarely triggered during our daily tasks. So when it kicks, you are pumped with a focus strong enough to keep you wondering for hours. The Perception-high.
You mostly navigate in a pre-digested world, seeing what you would expect to see. Conditioned by predispositions, past experiences or hurried backup-conclusions.
Imagine perception as a color. The full rainbow representing the Object and each color a possible Perspective:
This is the perfect metaphor. Just like color is a brain’s hack to help you navigate, and not a property of the object itself, so your conditionings keep you moving in an otherwise overwhelming environment.
This eases decision making and enables action in an otherwise infinity of ponderation.
The mind reinforces the lessons you’ve gathered and the natural tendencies you have. It then paints the world according to your position at the rainbow.
When you look at something, you are actually throwing your colours at it and gazing back at the reflection. Imprisoned by a bubble of your own echo, moulded by imperfect barriers that guide your way into practicality.
Often, not aware of this colourful spectrum, we keep confusing our simplistic representations with the things in itself. The world stretches through our eyes so widely that is hard to notice our frontiers within it.
Just like someone before Newton wouldn’t see gravity in a fallen apple, who has never fallen in love will be blind to the colours of Romeo & Juliet:
The book is open, the apple cracks against the ground. Yet the observer will place the respective color in front of the object, collecting no more than a monochromatic representation. “God wanted the apple to fall”, colorises the priest; “what a teenage angst thing to do, Romeo”, scribbles the unlovable.
Think about the most practical and material-oriented person you know. Now picture her/him starting to drive. Imagine them becoming aware of the noises in the engine. Is it possible that this thought crossed their mind?
“The little noises it makes, it’s telling me what to do. For my whole life those were just random noises, but turned out to be instructions all along!”
Observation highs vary hugely in degree. They can be subtle, adding a little nuance to an existing colour. Or drastic, adding a whole new pigment to the palette.
You’ve been excited about becoming aware of something you were previously blind to before. Now compare that feeling with a man getting his mind blown by seeing colors for the first time [here’s a video].
Now compare that with the moment Einstein saw Time as another dimension, changing the colour spectrum for humanity.
Sure, most of us will never dream of such an intense revelation. But no matter the gradient of these perceptions, pleasure and admiration will always be aroused.
It’s about freedom. Novelty! To escape the circle of seeing what you would expect to see is to stand above a new landscape. To contemplate old sights with a renewed eye. It’s being a tourists to everything.
If you want to better master observation, and fix a dose of that sweet Perception High, you must realize how much your conditionings affect the impressions you gather.
Understand your mind-mold
The framework in which your mind operates is a complex interplay of psychological representations and social conditionings. These are the things that compose your colour.
To become aware of your mindset its helpful to play with some questions first. Let’s start small, with an experiment:
Think about riding a bicycle to work tomorrow. Allow yourself to reflect on the way you reason while answering these questions:
- Check my emotional pulse. Have I intuitively made up my mind before pondering?
- How did I tackled it, “why not” or “why would I”? How can that be a byproduct of my education?
- Can I attach a fear to my decision-making? What fear would that be?
- Is my analysis based on hopes or dislikes? Can those hopes be achieved or those dislikes avoided by my present self?
- Is there any stereotype or belief on my thought process? What is it?
This is important because it put you in a original position. Like stretching for your eyes, preparing you to see.
Henrique Pousão was a naturalistic painter who deeply understood the power of learning how to see. To patiently allow the eye to catch up with every side, to delay judgment and isolate the different impulses that suggest a conclusion.
For him observation was in itself an act of Creation.
TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT HIS PAINTING:
This young boy, joyfully staring at us with mellow eyes, resting from the stillness of posing, may be one of the most iconic, yet ignored, symbols regarding Observation-Creation.
It’s amazing how natural the pictured moment is.
The scene couldn’t be less pretentious, the studio is perfectly ordinary, the kid sits in a relaxed and childish way, even the working environment is somewhat mild.
It looks like you just walked in the middle of the action. Your presence caused an Interruption, so you are caught by a delightful smile and two proud eyes staring for approval.
In fact, this painting is all about Interruptions.
The boy stops posing to show you his own version of himself, drawn on a little piece of paper. Behind him, on the canvas, is the painter’s sketch for the child’s picture.
So, how many painting are here, and what can they teach us about Observation?
1 — The Child’s Sketch
The boy shows no respect for the ritual of painting.
Turning his back on the canvas while breaking his pose, the child interrupts the painter to show a rippled piece of paper. He doesn’t do it out of malice nor ignorance, but out of a light-hearted disregard for convention.
Why show reverence to something just because it’s drawn in a proper canvas? Why not be proud of a piece of paper if it’s saturated with the same matter as the masterpieces: Pure Creativity.
The Child doesn’t aspire to rebel against anything, there is no duty in his creation. But the force he is driven by shows no mercy to authority, it is empowered by the value of curiosity and excitement in itself.
All principles are new and noble, all approaches worth considering. “Truth” is but a toy to be played with, open to amusing construction, while ideas are molded, tossed, mixed and joint like pieces of LEGO.
Nothing is too absurd, nothing is too serious, nothing is too evident!
It there was not a child in our way to Perception High, then Galileo Galilei would never have dropped balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, disclaming the solemn Aristotelian theory of gravity.
Never would Hennig Brand boild his own piss to discover phosphorus, or would anyone conceive the idea of a cat being both alive and dead at the same time.
It’s all about the freedom, the innocence, to level all that was thought and seen to a common ground where new values and concepts can flourish.
Interrupting authority, fuelled by Pure Creativity.
2 — The Canvas Draft
The draft presents a perfected version of the boy, nobler and more beautiful.
His wide potato nose is portrayed as small and delicate. The hat on top of his ragged clothes even seem aristocratic. His meditative head rests upon a steady hand. There is an overall feeling of idealisation
Somewhere, right now, there’s some small group of people working in a garage, dreaming about, if every single thing goes smoothly, changing the world.
Some eventually will. If Apple, Google or Microsoft had never dreamed of the most positive possible scenario, then how could they have aspired to be what they’ve become?
While playing with an idea, feel free to extend it into it’s most extreme scenario. Elaborate a whole mental experiment, or invent completely new laws and models.
The painter interrupts the boundaries of reality to go beyond the limits of his physical theme.
This is when you don’t think about how things are, but question about how things could be.
That thought functions as an arrow, pointing to a distant bright destiny that you ought to follow. At the dawn of agriculture, a man envisioning a golden field of wheat. A revolting slave dreaming of equality. A deaf scientist wishing to hear…
Though the complete opposite is also relevant.To warning us about just how bad something can become.
These are the so-called Utopias and Dystopias, and they are both a great compass and magnifying glass, when operated by Idealization.
3 — Henrique Pousão’s Painting
There was a moment when Pousão understood he would not be satisfied with what he was portraying.
That he would be missing something if he kept on painting the initial, sketched, version of the child’s portrait. So he Interrupted it.
Seeking the noble beauty he had first envisioned would cost him authenticity. By pursuing the classic canon, the stylised portrait that is set to elevate Art from the mundane (with its picturesque backgrounds and romanticised beauty) Pousão would then be blind to the real boy.
Blind to a shy smile concealed by proud eyes. He would never notice the elegance with which the child’s ragged, old, shoes touch the ground like a ballerina. And the chance to capture a manner so subtle, so enriched with truth, would be lost.
Roar back at the loud command of expectations. Both your own and all others. Understand that you also take part in shaping the concepts that are so often taken as truth.
Doing so widens possibility. Look beyond present conventions and morals. Shape this structure, because it will eventually also change your own views in a loop. Society is an ever mutable cycle of transformation. Check any history book.
The ability to sacrifice one’s present vision and opinion is the great virtue of adaptability. To be always permeable, taking pride in once being wrong and honouring not being sure of anything.
Embracing reality in its full scope, even when contradictory or hurtful, is to be synchronised with its complexity.
Facing ugliness with a wholesome disposition is what got us using Viruses, infectious agents responsible for taking countless lives, to Cure such diseases as cancer.
4 — Your Observation as a Painter
Though the paint didn’t move, the painting has changed. It’s no longer the one you’ve first seen. It has been painted over.
For every new observation a pigment has been added. colours been deepened and shapes widen.
In any sport, game or activity, enjoyment consists in taking part, is being committed to imprint your individuality, feeling and being engaged.
You stood, facing the canvas, in the position of a Painter. Ready to pick up the brush Pousão so thoughtfully left within your reach at the left of the canvas. Reminding that it up to you to give colour to any observation.
Facing the fact that we are painters of our impressions is as empowering as liberating. It offers the world as a palette to explore, strengthening our ties with everything and setting observation as an act of creation.
In a strange way the freedom granted for painters, to enthusiastically and with imagination depict their views, don’t set them apart from reality.
Quite the contrary, it allows them a stronger connection and sensibility with it, as it promotes inquiry and critical sense. The absolute contrary of Apathy, the great responsible for neglecting one’s relation to knowledge.
If you weren’t a painter, then Pousão’s masterpiece would have a painting less: Yours, an ever-changing piece.
There is no such thing as empty things or people. Just elements filled with something you haven’t yet learned to see.
By keeping in check Pousão’s lessons things appear less solid and more like an interplay of invisible fabrics. A tissue of colours filled with nuance, waiting to be experienced from every angle.
If everyone is looked at as a painter, then discussions are more fluid, people more tolerant, observation more engaging, and things just a lot more interesting to look at.
Do you remember becoming aware of something you were blind to? What? Comment bellow
