Gorilla

In studying for my motorcycle license, I learned what inattentional blindness means.

When you are riding on a motorcycle, you must pay close attention at all times. In fact, in order to stay actively engaged on the physical road ahead, my instructor offered a pattern of eye movement – ahead, down, side-to-side – in order to avoid catastrophic injury. You look ahead to give your mind a preview of the road, down to make sure you are riding on smooth and dry surfaces, and side-to-side to make sure objects like merging cars and barking dogs won’t redirect you.

It’s a little different when driving a car. I am rusty on driving protocol, and I don’t recommend anyone follow my example, but my pattern of eye movement while driving is anything but disciplined. I am checking my phone at red lights, looking at my kids in the backseat during slow-moving traffic. In a car, I’ll notice the pothole I rode over because my car gave me a jolt. On a motorcycle, that jolt sends you to the pavement, and maybe the hospital.

Inattentional blindness occurs when we’ve been driving a car for so long that we don’t notice the smaller blemishes on the road because they are inconsequential. To put it another way, we only see what we are looking for.

This is as true in life as it is true behind the wheel.

Selective vision phenomenon was popularized by the demonstration of the man in the guerilla suit and the basketball players. 

Perhaps you’ve seen it? 

You are told at the start of the video to count how many passes are completed. As those players move they become hard to count, so you really have to pay good attention to what you were asked to quantify. No one seems to notice, while they are counting the passes, that a man in a gorilla suit struts by and waves to the camera.

Upon second viewing, and not focusing so exactly on the players, your vision is free to go to the obvious: there is a gorilla in the room.

Going through the exercise, I remember, left me feeling a little self-betrayed. Come on, brain. How did you not notice that gorilla? But, in reality, this exercise does not reflect our intelligence or acuity. All it does is prove that things only exist in our field of vision if we are in the right frame of mind to see them.

Most of what I refer to as a miracle on this blog is not divine retribution, but seeing — often reluctantly — what is in plain sight. How often, really, do we appreciate the things we have? 

We had all sorts of car trouble this summer. On several occasions, one of our cars didn’t start. And I knew that if I didn’t sort out all these little issues, the school year – with my wife and I commuting to work and the daddy shuttle service in operation for our kids after school – it would be a disastrous start. The summer time for a teacher is a great time to handle this sort of business. I had the luxury of calling a tow and waiting without the need to be somewhere else.

And with that in mind, I am finding it more and more difficult to be upset when someone is slow to turn on that green arrow or when someone else cuts me off in traffic. If I can keep my gratitude to be in a moving and operating vehicle in the forefront of my mind, these situations don’t provoke rage like they normally would. I can see them for what they truly are: random road occurrences that have nothing to do with me, really. This is why, of late, I have been laughing off those who need to flip me off if I’m not driving the way they want me to.

It’s not me they are flipping off. They don’t see me.

Like the man in the gorilla suit, I am hiding in plain sight from them.

And this has got me thinking.

Just how many gorillas have I missed in all my frantic hustle and bustle? I am so often in a rush with a rigid agenda, lacking any patience for detours or changes of plan. I think what we often call focus is, in actuality, a state of blindness. Yes, of course, there is great importance is setting your eyes on the prize. Goal-setting and list-making create an efficiency of action that is needed in a chaotic world. But what if our goals shifted off of task completion and material gain and onto treating every living thing we encounter with grace and civility?

If I pursued personal growth the way I pursue personal gain, I am certain I would be a much happier person. And I would see life for what it is: a miracle.

My daughter turned 2 yesterday. 

She is a seeing-eye-dog for my blind stumbling through life’s bliss.

Picture me, for example, a week ago, in front of her crib around bedtime. I was in charge. And I’m pretty tough on the schedule. My children are helping me everyday with chores and other things to keep us on time.

So, bed time means bed time to me. Books and crib. Never walk downstairs. Never. She didn’t eat all her dinner? That’s on her. She’ll learn to.

Enter the gorilla.

What am I doing?

“Eliza, let’s go for a walk.”

“Alk? Daddy, Alk?” Insert cute grown up inspired head tilt. She drops her books, runs out the door with blissful disregard of gravity, ricochets off the door frame.

“Em O-K,” she says, bouncing back on her feet. “Ri-ri!” That’s our dog. “Come on! Alk, ri-ri.” Then she looks at me, “Baba?”

“You want to invite your brother?”

“Yesh, baba! Baba! Alk, come on!”

I saw more on that brief walk before bed than I’ve seen since the start of my mad school schedule. I saw a 2-year-old take the hand of her older brother and glide wide-eyed through the front door of the universe.

May I always see the gorilla in the room.