What do you see?

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

What do you see in the wood block print above? Take a moment and look closely. Now, what do you see?

Funny, how our eyes are drawn to the prominent point of a picture. Like a small piece of white paper on a lawn of emerald green. We see what is unexpected first, then we see what is really there. Evolution has trained us well. Mother nature has taught us to on our guard for what appears to be out of place. Maybe a predator in the tall grass, a misplaced word in a conversation or even a shadow upon a wall. And all this cautionary behavior is inbred in our very genome. We look for the prominent point and for what appears to be unusual. 

Sometimes I feel that we judge others in the same light. We notice the prominent features of their physical forms and then inspect their "look" and their words for anything suspicious. "Better safe than sorry." "All people are bad, in some form. If they don't look like me, well . . . ."

The translated title of the 1833 Japanese wood block print above is Under a Wave off Kanagawa. It is from a series of prints entitled The thirty-six views of Mount Fuji. You did see Mount Fuji in the print, didn't you?

Maybe, if we look closely at first. We can see what is really there.