The Leaf of Difference

119 | When you can see without thinking

Image by author.

One of these days, on a short walk, I was surprised.

I was walking and observing my surroundings. The trees, the birds, the noises of nature and of some cars and people passing by.

Suddenly, something caught my eye on the ground.

In the middle of all the green, a red leaf.

It caught my attention because of its vivid color, which “clashed” but stood out at the same time.

I looked around for its source. However, no source of the same color was in sight.

Where had it come from?

Why had it come here?

Perhaps just to give me the joy of seeing the unusual?

It reminded me of the times when we feel uncomfortable when someone looks “strange”.

Sometimes our judgments come so quickly that we don’t even notice them. We find ourselves looking at that person — at someone we’ve never seen and know nothing about — through the glasses of belief and prejudice.

If we can realize that, maybe we can change that gaze.

Maybe we’ll be able to really look at these people who fall outside what we’ve culturally decided to label as “normal”, just out of curiosity.