active seeing

Seeing is something we usually regard as an inward directed process. With that I mean that as you are perceiving at the objects outside of you, something happens on the inside of you. Observing the outer world comes with changes in the inner world. This outside to inside direction can be turned around.

When I was a kid I enjoyed playing with Lego Technics quit a lot. During that time I got a tiny insight that I still remember till this day. My set of building blocks contained pneumatic cylinders, which resembles the big hydraulic cylinders you see on big machines like excavators. Those little Lego cylinders work with air. Pushing air in and out the cylinder would expand or contract the cylinder. This way I could control the movement of the cylinder by controlling the air flow. But, as I played around, I noticed the opposite was also true, if I pushed down on the cylinder, air would come out, if I would draw the cylinder back out, the air would be sucked into the cylinder. There is a strong correlation between the moving of the cylinder and the moving of the air. The air and mechanical movement of the piston have a strong coupling, if you manipulate one, it has an effect on the other.

John is mostly grumpy. Maria is adventures. We say we know the people in our lives. What we mean be "knowing", is that we carry a mental model of them in our head, one that more or less predicts how they will behave. Through experience we build this neurological map of them in our brain. That's how we come to remember how they are, and how we "know" that John is mostly grumpy. Our experiences of them are thus shaping parts of our brain that is in correlation with those experiences.

Our neurology contains a map/reflection of our past experiences. Someone who was abused probably has a brain shaped very differently from someone who had a nurturing life. Our outside world / experiences, literally influence the shape of our internal world / neurology. Just like the movement of the Lego cylinder being strongly correlated to the air flow. So seems the outside world strongly correlated to one's inside world. But is this also a bidirectional coupling just like the Lego pneumatic cylinder? Can we also turn this the other way around?

To me, active seeing is an experiment trying to turn it around. Instead of seeing something happening in the world, and as a result have an internal change, I start to see/believe/imagine (and thus changing my neurology) so something will happen/change in my external world. I am trusting/believing that the coupling between inner and outer world must hold. So the idea is that if I make changes in my inner world, my outer world has to follow.

Of course, one can easily say that it's a fantasy, kid stuff, to see/imagine something that is not there, that it's delusional, this is not how reality works. But why do we have this fantasy/imagination as a child? And does it then have no purpose at all? Would it just be another skill that we reject from our childhood? Many skills we leave behind, often judged as childish, but I believe we should not abandon them, but integrate them, for they make a richer and healthier life.

To some degree we are practicing these imagining skills already. Think of the athlete whom imagines finishing a race faster then before. Or think of how one reminds one self one cannot sing, so most likely the singing wil never happen. In a way these are examples of practicing internally, shaping our neurology, so our reality would reflect that.

This mind-to-reality-coupling also comes to play when it involves others? When someone is caring about you, knows what you have been through, it might be easier for you to feel safe. Or have you find it difficult doing something, let's say in a crowd, when everyone is convinced you can't, and there might be another situation where you found it easy when everyone is cheering you on? The activated neurology of the others, the believes/perception of those around you, is influencing their outside world (you) in that direction. What about finding it difficult to do something amongst a parent and to find it easy to do amongst a friend. The neurological map others have of you is influencing your behaviour, what you can and can not do easily, statistically speaking.

It's interesting to think about this map in your head, that influences another person. Your mental model of a person, with all your convictions, believes etc, is in a way helping to hold that person in that particular state. In and of it self it is a serving/good thing, as the map in your head stabilises the state of the other. But it can also not be, if your mental model, how you see this person, are helping to keep that person in a state that you or the person might actually not favour.

In these unpleasant situations we often tend to direct our willpower to the outside world, try to change the person, to speak to them, to physically take distance, etc. But sometimes that does not work, or it is even counter productive. We tend to focus only on changing the external world, because we do not see this bidirectional coupling. Changing the map-in-our-head of this person instead, is not something we think about.

So when choosing what you really want to see, in the world, in another person. Something has to change. It can be that former grumpy John, turns up unexpectedly as bright and delightful John. In that moment your mental model of John will change, because in that moment you experienced that John can also be bright and delightful. The coupling between outside world and inside works insinuates that you could also start picturing John as bright and delightful even when your outside world, your experience of John, clearly shows he is not.

So when allowing oneself to use fantasy again, one can start to see in an active way, seeing things, imagining things, that are not yet shown in ones outside world. To see things that one wants to see in the world, even if they are not there yet, and to let the outside world follow. Then you are seeing in an active way, you are actively seeing something into reality. Instead seeing something from reality into you. The direction is turned around.

One can stop seeing the limitations in others, that already helps. But one can go further than not projecting, or repeating the lesser stories we think about others.

Take the person who is always angry, or nagging, or complaining. Maybe before going to sleep, try to see them the way you would want them to be. Actively, in your head. You will notice tension/resistance. Your brain believes this person is not that kind, is not that caring. This shows how much resistance there is to seeing reality the way we would choose to see it, it shows you how much you are participating, through this principle of coupling, in holding that person in that state. It's taking our responsibility to another level as your perception of the other matters. It takes effort to start pushing air back into a cylinder as the cylinder is not yet moving. So does it also takes effort to reshape your believes/perception of something that is not yet changed. As you will notice, as soon you start to become "delusional", as soon you picture a person in a serving way that is not how this person currently is, you will notice a complaint of the brain with its neurological, chemical and emotional resistance. As it's not used to move in the opposite direction.

I have practiced, at night, in bed, seeing another that hurt me, in a different light. To love them, to forgive them, to thank them, can be a process of a lot of friction. Because in the moment I do not love them, or want to thank them. But the bigger picture, the grander vision is that I do. Doing this practice over and over again, I changed my mental model about this person. So the next time we met, this inner work, had a positive effect.

Maybe we do not change on our own. We help each other by actively seeing each other in the best of daylight, even though our reality is not showing that (yet).

It is quiet, behind the scenes work. You will not get rewarded/praised for it in the common sense. But the reward is high. Actively seeing something into another, into the world, holding that vision, gently, whilst knowing it is not here yet, knowing it will become, somehow, eventually.