Sight and look
"To see is to understand, appreciate, transform, imagine, forget or forget, live or disappear." For the ophthalmologist, however, there are only eyes and the organ that makes it possible, our eye. The eye in the understanding of the doctor is the eyeball, the optic nerve, the pupil, the iris, the lens ... The eye gives us the opportunity to see, that is, to have access to visual information. However, its perception is no longer a passive reception of signals from the outside world, but an active interaction with it. This is the view. The picture of the world that appears before our eyes speaks more about us than about the material world around us. We see the color - turquoise, emerald, lilac, gray - despite the fact that, in fact, there is no color in nature. They become reality for us only because this is the structure of our eyes and brain centers that process visual information. The same goes for perception of much more complicated things. We see not an objective reality, but that which is the result of one or another experience that each of us possesses. A blind person from birth, if he succeeds in seeing, sees the world as a chaos of colors. Eskimos are able to distinguish not a few shades of white, like us, but a whole lot. What we see depends not only on our physiological apparatus, but also on the psychological structure and culture to which we belong. " Our perception is selective, so the savage will see only a flat stone in the object, which we call a laptop. The child will consider the doll as the artist recognizes a miniature copy of the famous antique statue.
I see - it means I exist
What we see around us, shapes ourselves. Our view of the world around us is constantly changing - from the first weeks of our life. A special experience is a look at oneself, which allows us to realize ourselves as a person, to understand: "I am." Outstanding French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in the development of the child singled out the "mirror stage", during which (6-18 months) it is recognition of oneself in the mirror reflection that helps a person to feel and realize his integrity for the first time. "I see myself - therefore I exist." But how do we see ourselves and do this view of reality correspond to it? We can only talk about a more or less objective view of ourselves. And even this relative objectivity is available only to a mature person - someone who adequately perceives their capabilities and their limits. The view is distorted, because at times reality is intolerable for us. That is, it turns out to be impossible for us to accept the "reality of ourselves" - those who we really are. " Reality, the psychoanalyst explains, often causes feelings in us that are hard to survive: envy, a sense of abandonment, loneliness, own smallness. These feelings and cause that our inner "mirror" is cunning. Therefore, we see not what is in fact, but what we want to see. So in the desert before a person because of an intolerable feeling of thirst, the image of an oasis arises, where pure water flows from the spring. Those who say the phrase "I do not like myself" actually mean "I do not like my image", "I am upset by the look I look at myself". To look at oneself from the outside, in order to try to understand yourself better, is a therapeutic work. This is a difficult task, and it can be difficult because the illusion built by our defensive eye will not have as much in common with reality as we would like. All this is realized not only from the pleasing eyes of colors, but also from a multitude of shades, which naturally cause contradictory feelings. However, only this way will help us to reconcile ourselves, take our weaknesses and our dignities, understand our uniqueness. To really see yourself is to love yourself.