Contemplations
Looking is a skill—a conscious decision. It requires willingness and ability, an intentional effort to see beyond the obvious. We fail to notice the familiar because we are conditioned to seek the foreign. But true discovery lies in seeing what others have seen yet overlooked and making connections that others have missed.
Rick Rubin, in The Creative Act, talks about noticing what no one else sees. Our perception shapes what we observe—no two people see the world in the same way. We see the world not as it is, but as we are. Our experiences and personalities filter our perspective, determining what we pay attention to and what we ignore.
Imagine sitting in a dentist’s waiting room. The chairs are neatly arranged, the magazines stacked but there’s no clock on the wall. You don’t notice at first. Then, when you instinctively glance up to check the time, something feels off. It’s a small omission, easy to overlook, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The absence of something expected tells a story just as significant as its presence. Train yourself to notice these gaps, to question what’s missing as much as what’s there.
Questions are powerful tools for seeing. The right questions unlock, while the wrong ones lock. Questions prevent the brain from slipping into autopilot, allowing us to challenge our assumptions and notice subtle details we would otherwise filter out. They slow us down, make us mindful, and sharpen our ability to observe.
Consumptions
Black Like Me is a fascinating book by John Howard Griffin, published in 1961. In it, Griffin, a white man, disguises himself as a black man for several weeks in the racially segregated American South. He darkens his skin using a dermatological treatment, ultraviolet ray exposure, and repeated applications of dark makeup.
This social experiment is a classic example of walking in another man’s shoes to see the world through his eyes. What Griffin experienced was the American black man’s fears, frustrations, and fury at the daily injustices he faced.
Griffin started his experiment in New Orleans, and in the book, he recalls an experience from his first few days of transition that captures the painful reality of segregation and exclusion:
“On Chartres Street in the French Quarter, I walked toward Brennan’s, one of New Orleans’ famed restaurants. Forgetting myself for a moment, I stopped to study the menu that was elegantly exposed in a show window. I read, realizing that a few days earlier I could have gone in and ordered anything on the menu. But now, though I was the same person with the same appetite, the same appreciation and even the same wallet, no power on earth could get me inside this place for a meal. I recalled hearing some Negro say, “You can live here all your life, but you’ll never get inside one of the great restaurants except as a kitchen boy.” The Negro often dreams of things separated from him only by a door, knowing that he is forever cut off from experiencing them.”
The psychological toll of living as a black man quickly affected Griffin.
“The nightmare worried me. I had begun this experiment in a spirit of scientific detachment. I wanted to keep my feelings out of it, to be objective in my observations. But it was becoming such a profound personal experience, it haunted even my dreams.”
Reading this book highlighted why fair-skinned black Americans before racial desegregation tried to pass as white if they could get away with it. For many, it was their only way to escape discrimination. What Griffin experienced for just six weeks—and had the luxury of leaving behind—was the everyday reality for black people in the American South.
