Not Everything Is As It Seems
- Posted by: Joe Williams
Hug a cactus?
Right. We all know that a Saguaro has long, sharp spines. Get too close and pow, you pay the price.
So how is Debbie Chow, April 2009 Dialoguer from Vancouver, avoiding this in the photo above?
First, this particular Saguaro is an old fella (probably 250-300 years old, actually) and the spines on the bottom of his skin have fallen off, which make him quite huggable. On first glance, he looks simply unhuggable. Unapproachable. Untouchable.
But on closer inspection, it is quite the opposite.
(After all, how many people can say they’ve hugged a Saguaro?)
But once we change our focus we change what we see.
We need to look at the world with different eyes.
If we want to truly see what is before us all along, we need to narrow the focus.
And when we do, everything that looks on first glance frightening and prickly, might not always be that way.
As Thoreau said, “The question isn’t what you are looking at, it’s what do you see?”
What are you looking at today?
What do you need to see?
