5/07/2012

Accuracy

"Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking"
(Wallace Stevens)

Thinking and looking might be not that far away from each other as we would instinctively assume.  Of course thinking and looking means different things to different folks.   A very few live while thinking and think while living.   It is for them that living is genuinely thinking, thinking is genuinely living.  There are plenty of others who, claiming to think and proclaiming themselves as thinkers, use thinking merely as a pose, either artistic or academic, as something external to themselves, something they use for PR of their personalities.  Something dead. 

If we are honest to our instincts we smell either the corpses directly the intellectual rats they attract.  Usually the posing “thinkers” leave bitter taste in our mouths or rather ears or even better - minds, but since they usually are good at self promotion is it difficult to spot their shtick at the first glance. 

Similarly looking is plagued by the same sins of posing, falseness, inaccuracy, pretentiousness and haste.   A very few look, fewer see and even fewer observe accurately.