A response to "Ways of Seeing"

This diagram shows the relationship between public, private and semi-private with the structure of the building.

I read the reading of Ways of Seeing before I looked at the questions and while reading the very first quote stuck in my head.  “Seeing comes before the words.  The child looks and recognizes before it can speak (pg 7).”   From the beginning of our lives we learn what things are and they are called, and when we look at objects today we immediately know what we are looking at without have to use words.  Of course now our minds just tell us what we looking at and we no longer have to make a description for ourselves.  Since we are so use to thinking in these terms, we find it hard to describe something to another person who has no idea what we are talking about.

We do the same thing with places that we do with objects, but I think describing a place is far easier then trying to describe an object.  Today we went to Copley Square and attempted to describe our observations.  I decided that during my investigation I would focus only on sounds that make up the area, so I took my notebook to an area of the square where no one else was and began my investigation.  I sat down on top of the water foundation and focused my eyes on the notebook that lay in my lap.  When my attention was completely focused on my notebook, I began to describe the area around he as if I had never seen it and would never see it. 

My example of listening to the sounds of the square as a way of seeing is very valid.  I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but sometimes you have to look at the world from someone else’s point of view, such a blind man.