Biased sight!

I passed by this flower pot several times in the last three days. What stood out in my sight was the flower, until on one occasion I noticed an ant crawling on a bud close to the flower. What was glaring was the colourful flower and it occupied my sight all the time.

This is the usual sight bias. We see what we  look for. We observe what interests us.

In a conversation with a teenage boy yesterday, I sensed how engaged and enthused he was about foot ball. His interest in foot ball was deep rooted in his consciousness that he dared to give secondary attention to his studies although his tenth grade examination is forthcoming. HIs struggle with Mathematics and History is distressing to him and his compensation is to divert his attention to foot ball. His parents who used to help him till 6th grade for home work and help in understanding of the subjects do not get enough time  to help him. Or is it they cannot help him! They feel occupied with work and are left with less space for a demanding engagement with their son!

A biased teenager and and pre-occupied parents! 

The bud is the future of the plant. The flower and buds are equal in their functions.

When parents get pre-occupied and a child gets biased, the outcome is distressing!

At the end of a 70 minutes conversation, I found the early steps of both the teenager and parents feeling connected with each other!

Both of them needed to be freed from their subjective orientation to see an opportunity if only they can collaborate!

One personal exercise that I find necessary is to visit my perceptions and choose to revise them lest my perceptions become a reality. Then it becomes a bias in my thoughts and attitudes! A bias is a preference to view a situation from a personal orientation of convenience or heightened interest.

Let me also confess that sights compete for our attention. In the following picture the butterfly captures our attention and other sights in the photo get visually subdued. 

To see the less obvious is an art of observation that need our auditory, visual  and perceptive senses !

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)