Every morning when I hear bird chirping in my balcony, instead of relishing the sound, my eyes invariably search for the bird on trees creating this melody. Unknowingly, in a fraction of a second my attention deviates from the sound to what all I see. That is the addiction of seeing – we want to see the sound to believe it! I realized I needed few moments of visual silence to listen to the melody.
Throughout the day we indulge ourselves through eyes (may be followed by taste 🙂). Our eyes become the examiner of our days – always marking, categorizing and judging. They create a mental-map of world around us. In fact the imagery plays such a big role that we start visualizing even unfamiliar things or places. At time we forget the other heroes of sense that is smell, touch, taste and sound.
I have seen chefs smell food before tasting it. Many a times when people think deeply they close their eyes. May be they are muting the eyes, so that other senses can take over.
I wonder how our brain process the information when we intentionally remove this dominant sense of seeing. Once the eyes are closed, the breeze become a conversation and a the humming of the child becomes the best melody.
Visual Sillence at campus
At Aarohi we planned to halt the visual default for some time. We blindfolded ourselves and went on an exploration. There was a tug-of-war in the brain – the struggle of not seeing and the secret joy of feeling the place where we spend our days. We realized that “knowing” a place visually is very different from “feeling” a place through sound and touch. The stone ledge guided some of us. The feet sensed the damp soil; the scent of freshly watered plants left the clue that we reached to our gardening patch. We basked in the sound of silence for some time. For a few minutes, time stood still.
A Blindfold for parents
As I reflected on this experience, I could not help thinking how will I see my child blindfolded?
Usually, when we look at them, we only notice the surface—the behavior, the manners, the body language. But what if we quieted our eyes for some time everyday?
- Can we feel the discomfort of their silence or the excitement of crossing one more level in their video games world?
- When we stop looking for outcomes, what new sound of needs and emotions seek our attention?
- How can we stop visualizing and mapping each of their interest to their future?
- Do we only react to what is visible—the messy room, the screen time, the frown?
This activity reemphasized that the most important growth in a child is often “inaudible” and “invisible” until we choose to mute our eyes.
Please check this article on listening