Looking past something is how most of us get through a day. A face, a feeling, a small thing that's been asking for attention. Ask what you're looking past, and notice how quickly the eyes want to move on to the answer.
What am I not looking at on purpose? What have I stopped seeing because it's always there? Why do I keep looking at what's next? What would I notice if I slowed down for a minute?
I can walk the same street for years and not see it. I know this because I've done it with a person, too. They were standing right in front of me, and I was looking at what I had planned for the afternoon. When did I last look at what was actually here?
Maybe it's a view with something in the way, and what I'm looking past is the thing I'm looking through. What is framing everything else I see right now, and have I ever looked at the frame?
Some of it is kindness, in a way. I look past what I can't deal with yet. Is that avoidance, or timing? And how would I know the difference?
The body tends to catch it first. A tightening I've ignored since morning, a tiredness that's been there for weeks, a breath I keep skipping over. Where is it, and what has it been waiting for me to look at?
There's also the other direction. What if the thing I keep reaching toward, the destination in the distance, is the part I'm looking past? And what if the part in front of me is the one that's been looking back?
I wrote about how attention works like a lens, and what we bring into focus changes what's allowed to exist at all, in Attention is like a zoom lens. And about the things we already know and step around, in What are you pretending not to know?.
If this one turned something up and you feel like sharing it, I'd like to hear it. Private, under your name, or anonymous, whichever feels right to you.
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