Francellys S. Maysonet Rodríguez 

Prof. Cynthia Pittmann

INLG. 3135-002

22 May 2018

On Looking 

“As we grow up, over the course of days and months, we learn to deal with the confusion by paying little of it mind”. (11Horowitz) Imagen those first days as a new born child, how from muffled sounds and floating in our mom’s tummy, we come to a room full of sounds. A sound vibrating constantly at a rate we weren’t used to and accostum to such a world by blocking it and getting used to those sounds. That made me think, so is in the very first moments we come out of the womb and get use to the sounds and things that surrounds us, that we start to lose sense of every little detail that happens around us.    

“It is forgotten because we failed to pay attention to the journey to begin with”. (2 Horowitz) When I read this specific line of Amateur Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz, it struck me because it’s so true. Every moment at least now this days, people seem incapable of living their life without a smartphone, and guilty as charged, I even tend to shower with the phone in front of me playing TV series or Youtube videos. And little by little people start fading away and disconnecting from other people perspective of the world and get stuck in a constant cycle that they tend to repeat over and over for the rest of their lives. We unconsciously (sometimes consciously) turn on the do not disturb button and keep on going, not noticing the small things and taking them for granted. 

"We are not blinded, but we have blinders." (9 Horowitz) Is it the way society has created positions, standards and money to make us suffer day by day into being in constant competition with one, on who gets a better check at the end of the day, who has the newest car, newest cloth and really who seems or has more power. Maybe things like this have made us dumb on to seeing what’s constantly happening around us, what people may be going through or just to “chill” and take life easier and day by day. To take our blinders of because since little we are shown a way to think and see life but is life really supposed to be thought of or lived in a specific way; I don’t think so.  

When Horowitz, mentions that in her book "she’s looking for what it is she’s missing, every day, right in front of her, while walking around the block." (15 Horowitz) Life is so much more than what we are living right know, you and me, we could be doing so much different thing and having so many different life experiences but we keep missing the moments, the little things that could help us create a better “me”. Stop what you’re doing and start looking around. By looking around, I mean go out and meet different people with different interest and positive once, get to know how you are and what you may want in life, find your passion and don’t let it get by you because it may be right in front of us but we secure our blinders, without even knowing it and let it all pass by like opportunities, moments, memories, faces, and even smiles in the split of seconds they are gone.