What You See is Not All That Is
I think what I have is a broken blood vessel in my right eye. Google says so. The white of my eye is blood-red and my vision is a little blurry, too. I currently look like a zombie cast member out of “The Walking Dead.” I kick it up a notch by getting into character, slack jaw, sticking my arms straight out when I walk, dragging one foot. But I digress.
With my one good eye, I was perusing Facebook this morning when my mind was slightly blown by a quote in a photograph, “What you see is not all that is.”
Ohhhh yeah, there’s more. So much more.
The source wasn’t cited, and so I went on an online hunt. The closest thing I could find was, “What you see is all there is,” by Daniel Kahneman. Which sounds like an opposing declaration: What you see is all you get and there’s just no more information to be had. After reading a little about Kahneman’s philosophy, I realized that I’d jumped to a conclusion—which, I think, is actually a good example of what he’s talking/written about when he coined the word, WYSIATI (an acronym for the concept). I haven’t read his book, but based on what I’ve gleaned from the web, his assertion (I think) can be summarized this way: As humans, we routinely make decisions based on incomplete information.
Which is what I did. I made a snap decision that he would disagree with the initial mind-blowing line I’d read earlier today. Kahneman is actually saying the same thing—there’s more than meets the bloody eye.
I might be a stickler, but I like the first line, “What you see is not all that is” much better. Not only does it sound like poetry to me, it packs a wisdom wallop. In just eight, simple little words, I am re-centered. The world—and my life—are put into real context. I am reminded of what I profess to believe. As Jay-Z says in his lyric, “the limit is the sky.” I can’t see a limit in the sky, so you do the math.
My world gets limited by my own mind. I forget I am a spiritual person–an FSP: Forgetful spiritual person.
Sometimes people will refer to me as a “religious person.” I’m fine with that if that means they see me as also a spiritual person, that I practice religion as James describes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.—James 1:27.
Thing is, I’m very often on autopilot, forgetting that there are unseen forces at work. I am reminded when I read the mind-blowing line as I did this morning, but I’m also reminded when something occurs in my life that cannot be explained away. When something happens that could not be whittled down to a mere coincidence. A flat-out miracle. In my life, I have had countless miracles happen that I have “seen.” Still, I tend to operate, decide, conduct myself, factoring in only those tangible, see-able things. I limit myself, I self-sabotage. The way this shows up for me is through emotions like fear, worry, and anxiety.
One of my favorite scriptures is Genesis 28:16, where Jacob utters, “Surely the lord was in this place and I was not aware of it.” Jacob was on the run, in fear for his life. He was literally between a rock and a hard place. He’d stopped to rest and had gone to sleep using a rock for a pillow.
Then the “unseen” showed up.
Jacob had a mind-blowing dream of a ladder stretching to heaven with angels ascending and descending it. At the top of the ladder was God, who spoke his big God words to Jacob. God told Jacob what was. He told Jacob what was really real.
I can almost see it: Jacob wakes and smacks his palm to his forehead, duh.
God was there. God is here. This whole place and all of its chaos is not all there is. Unsee-able stuff is swirling and churning all around us—good and bad. I have had too much evidence to truly disbelieve.
I read the line this morning, “What you see is not all that is,” and I was like Jacob, palm to the forehead, Duh. You worry because you forget about what’s really real. You fear because you often operate not-knowing God is present. You get caught up in the here and now and only what your scary eye can see. You don’t know when or where the plot twist might happen.
When this happens, I feel a little silly for forgetting, but I also feel more free, less burdened, lighter, my breathing gets a little easier. I am reminded of what I profess to believe and truly do believe—there’s more.
I loved the Jack Nicolson and Helen Hunt movie, “As Good as it Gets.” Nicolson’s character, Melvin Udall, says to a waiting room full of—what seems—depressed psychiatric patients, “What if this is as good as it gets?”
In my humble opinion, factoring in the evidence before me, this is not as good as it gets. Even with my one good eye, I believe what I see is not all that is.
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I don’t have a soul, I am a soul. I have a body.
C.S. Lewis
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin