Throwback Thursday: To See or Not To See, That Is the Question

This was my third blog post, June 19, 2007. In the beginning I frequently lifted an idea, quote or insight from my decades of journaling and then elaborated on it. 

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To understand the world we live in, we must first see it as it is. Not as "trained" or manipulated to see it. Where do our ideas come from? Our ideas about God, about right and wrong, about how we should live... are they chosen, or... what?
--Journal note, Aug. 25, 1985

A long lost friend sent me this verse the other day, with the follow up explanation.

I looked to see
What I thought I saw,
But what I saw
I did not see.

"How many times do you think you see something, then turn to look and what you thought you saw wasn't what you were really looking at; in the real sense of it. On a more philosophical angle, every day we see past what's real to what we want to see, but only when we make efforts to truly see things for what they are do we realize it's not what we wanted to see. Our minds and hearts trick us every day into believing what isn't real." ~ S.P.