he thinks I don't see him?

The next time you walk out to your car, look around.
Take your eyes off the path, the driveway, the car just for a little while.
Pick your head up, stop walking, and really look around.

What do you see?

There are all sorts of things going on that you are not observing. You think you are in the moment, focused on the task of getting to the car, that you see everything around you but do you really see everything around you or only the parts you need to accomplish the task?

You can be looking right at something and not see it. You can be effectually blind to things right in front of you because you have selected only those things you need to complete your task and ignore the others.

Did you see the bird flitting from one branch to another? Did you see the wispy cloud, that little flower tucked in between the pavers on the walkway? The seed pod that had dropped from the tree and is now resting on your grass. That bug with the funny color can you find it? How about that floodlight that illuminates your driveway? Or the ladder leaning against the house? There are so many things you are missing when you don't stop for just a minute and take a look around.

In our visual world we limit the input as we go about our routines. We don't see the key chains, handbags, clipped on cell phones, work boots, high heels, flip flops, tee shirts, dress shirts, of humanity passing us by on the street. We miss the rickety shopping carts click, click, clicking along when we buy our food, we miss all the different shapes and sizes of humanity when we go to our jobs, the males, the females, the short ones, tall ones, we miss the trees, the flowers, the birds.

But we don't have to.

We can pay more attention.

We can actively try to view and absorb more of our world.

i was talking to friends yesterday at a party about this particular defect of ours and one said she could never see motorcycles or bicycles when she was driving. It had been a problem her entire driving career and she had to pay extra special attention to notice them. She said more times than not they would come up behind her or from in front and she would be practically crashing into them before she saw them.

Another one said she had been worrying about something so much that when she walked outside and looked around a cricket talked to her.

i said what did it say?

And she said the cricket said,

"Listen to me chirp and stop worrying about shit."

It was right, she said and so she stopped worrying.

There is a term for this failure to notice what is around you.

It is called inattentional blindness.

Inattentional blindness claims that there is no conscious perception of the world without attention to it and since our attention is limited we tend to miss a lot.

In the logical world we do the same things. We don't hear what someone we disagree with is saying. We limit their ability to impact our awareness and world view. We limit the input as we go about our routines, blinding ourselves to other options.

So how do we bridge the gap between what we see and retain and what is really there?

A first step might be creating an opening to all the rest that can be seen.

We had to cut down the Century Plant after a west wind blew it into the power lines causing them to short out during a storm. Most would have written the plant off and ignored it. But Lordy, lordy the darn thing didn't give up. It decided to send out flowers below the cut. It is a plant to be reckoned with and it does not want to be ignored.

So sometime after you read this see how many things you can notice on the next short trip to your car. Then do it again and see what you can add. Do it again and keep doing it.

If you pay attention you'll see a world you might have been missing.