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What It’s like to Look When There’s No One Looking
Last night, Cindy and I drove to a friend’s birthday party on the other side of the Bay. On the drive there and on the drive back, I spent some of the time examining looking in more detail. At one point, I said to Cindy, “Holy shit! I just saw it again for a moment. That van is so real and alive. It’s being itself!”
I was referring to natural looking, which is looking without the preconception that there is someone looking. Phenomenologically, natural looking is almost exactly the same as normal, unnatural looking. There is, however, a subtle difference, which seems ungraspable. In natural looking, there is no subject looking at an object; there is only the looking. Whereas in unnatural looking, there seems to be a subject looking at an object.
We’re all experiencing natural looking much of the time, and especially when we’re deeply engaged with life. The problem, if there is one (which there isn’t), is that as soon as we start to become “conscious” of looking, the idea of a separate self comes in. Then we think that “I” am inside the head as the subject that is seeing the object. It’s as if a hazy veil is pulled over what is being looked at, and then it seems as though it’s not really being seen anymore.
When looking at something that is particularly attractive or beautiful, natural looking arises…
