(of a person or their eyes) Adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly.
"The center of interest or activity."
So, if a person depends on their PHYSICAL eyeballs to grant them their sight, then they are then able to PHYSICALLY see the PHYSICAL world, thus their focus being on the PHYSICAL. That then, defines their definition of what seeing clearly is, so to them - the physical.
Now a person who is without physical eyeballs or just without the ability of them, is then unable to set their "center of activity" on physical sight to physically see the physical world. So perhaps they use their sense of touch, so that then essentially "sets" their "center of activity" at their skin. Therefore, their PERCEPTION of what the world is takes place at their "center of activity"; their skin.
per·cep·tion
Noun
- The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.
- The state of being or process of becoming aware of something in such a way.
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Let's use an example of a blind man- perhaps he views and defines the world by touch. What touch he likes, what touch he doesn't. This man would notice the scratchiness of someone's jacket before anyone who didn't have emphasis, or focus, on touch. We say that people who are without a sense are much more "in tune" with their other senses because they rely on them more, but is it really reliance or focus?
Apply this to any sense. A blind man that relies, or focuses on smell. He might walk out in DISGUST of someone's home that has a full to the lid trash can. The interesting part here is how the situation would be handled. This man walked out in DISGUST. People may say, "He's blind and relies more on smell, therefore his sense of smell is better than ours, it just bothers him more." I argue against that. I say this man's FOCUS and definition of the world is through the sense of smell, he left in disgust and thinks little of this environment, based on his actions, after what he just smelled. He didn't notice it because of a "better sense of smell" he noticed it because of his emphasis on the importance of smell, meaning what he values all the way to what he despises, due to his "center of activity" of where his perception of the world is formed. Essentially how he judges and interprets it.
Watch this now.
Someone has all physical senses working properly physically, and this person utilizes them all. She listens, speaks, sees, smells, and touches. She goes on a blind date and fakes a sick sister at home to leave early all because she knew she would never sleep with the guy because of his terrible acne.
Would we say that her eyes work better than ours because she noticed his acne?
All she's done here is demonstrated her emphasis on what she thinks is important, due to her "center of activity" where her perception of the world is formed. Her "center of activity" is at her eyes. Using the physical to see the physical; thus giving her personal value a direction.
Now, to use the physical to view the world, you rely on your physical senses which are of the body, because its physical, which makes sense right?
Let me demonstrate.
So, to rely on your senses, one's SELF then moves to align with the BODY, thus to interpret the world.
VIEWING
PERCEIVING
The "the center of activity" happening along the body, where the information/sensory input/output exists.
So then knowing this, its only logical that a line of vision is created, right? Just as it physically occurs. When there is a focal point there is accompanying peripheral vision.
(The focal point to be ever changing).
As stated before, perception takes place at our "center of activity", demonstrated below.
Okay, so its seen here then that relying on our physical senses to tell us what the world is brings our self focus to our body. Placing ourselves in the world then looks a little something like this...
Look at how much is out of sight.
This post is not geared with an emphasis on metaphysical. This is just one example. I showed that if your focus and perception rest on physical, you will only be able to see what's physical.
Lets move now to other applications.
If your focus is only on education then all you see is education. But then what senses or processes does education rest on? Seeing to read, thought processes to think, developing ideas, all of these are what you use, see, develop, and define the world with. If your focus is only on sports, all you see is sports, you may define the world with sports, your choice in friends probably have an appreciation for it as well, you sign your kids up for T-ball.
Value speaks value. The things you think are important, you give your focus to. They then are what you invest in and see the results of. If you don't give a hoot about dragon hunting in Romania, then you don't know a thing about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Just because one's peripheral doesn't extend to it does not mean that it does not exist.
But let me ask this. What if you didn't know that dragon hunting in Romania existed? But when you heard that I said it, it sparked an interest, and you followed it? You had never known of it prior to today. How often does that happen? There is so much that we have yet to have an awareness of, when will it present itself? We can't search for things that we don't know exist, right?! So we must wait. But to do that..
We must abolish peripheral vision. The only way that we can truly open up to everything around us, is to move our focus.
Back to YOU:
Now in this case here you are, with a focus on yourself. You are in the center of your body. You are centered. You are not shifting yourself in any one direction inside of yourself because to do so would then be giving a personal characteristic focus, thus focus would not be on YOU. To give one part of yourself focus you then are IDENTIFYING yourself as that characteristic. Also, you would be neglecting another part of yourself, and with a focus on yourself not one thing can be neglected.
Let me explain with an example. You are funny. Identifying yourself as funny is to shift your focus on being funny. Neglecting attention to "sensitive" or "rude". Not an even spread. DEAD CENTER, because you gave [your] LIFE to something outside of your center, but when your focus is on being you, you are giving LIFE TO YOU.
YOU + SELF = YOURSELF
LIFE + BEING = LIVING
See below,
Notice a few things here. By becoming YOU, you have shifted your "center of activity" to the center of yourself. First you can see that peripheral doesn't exist since your "vision" has been expanded by the acceptance of EVERYTHING. Also, by moving SELF FOCUS away from the body, you now have room for experience; you have space for emotions, knowledge, new wisdom.
Where as, here:
There was is room for experience, only perception and in turn, judgement.
Notice: Only one color.
Being CENTERED allows for self growth by every experience because not only is there room for experience inside of yourself, but there is room to grow! See how literal the phrase "room to grow" is?! In the picture above, there is no space, LITERALLY.
Okay, now that's bring this concept to another application.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
What happens when you think there is a problem? You bring into consideration everything you know, evaluate the problem, and attempt to fix it. But what happens when a problem arises when you are not centered?
This.
The area of the problem is all you see. So therefore, when assessing the means to fix it by looking to everything you know, all you know is essentially the section in which the problem lives. How can you fix the problem when the only resources you know of are "problem creators"?
I'm going to give this an example. We'll use relationships between people.
Person 1 sees a problem. The problem is, the dishes are dirty, and Person 1 has peripherals set. So when evaluating the problem, Person 1 identifies all factors. "The dishes are dirty". "I am angry". "They are in the sink". "I did all the dirty dishes last night". "Person 2 was home earlier". "They are Person 2's dishes". "Person 2 did not do their dishes". "The dishes can't do themselves, they don't have arms, it is Person 2's responsibility to do the dishes". "I am angry that Person 2 did not do their dishes" -> "I am angry at Person 2".
Since it is established that the dishes are unable to clean themselves, Person 1 becomes angry at Person 2. The problem is no longer that the dishes are dirty (dishes cannot clean themselves). The problem is that Person 2 neglected their responsibility of doing the dishes.
Person 1 now rationalizes reasons why Person 2 neglected their responsibility. "They are lazy". "They are a dirty person". "They don't care that I don't like it". "They want me to do all the work".
So now with this new problem at hand, Person 1 relays the issue to Person 2. Presenting "You didn't do the dishes. You are lazy, you are a dirty person, you don't care about me, you want me to do all the work". Essentially stating, "You are the problem".
Now, this could be handled by Person 2 in a number of ways, depending on where they hold their Self Focus. They hear the problem, "I didn't do the dishes because I am a lazy and dirty person, I don't care about others and want them to do all the work." Evaluating the problem, they decide that none of these things are true. Now, if using peripheral vision as well, their evaluated factors of where the problem came from, as well as resolution resources, are also limited. "Person 2 thinks I'm lazy, but I'm not, they must need to bring me down because they feel lazy themselves. Or Person 2 thinks I'm lazy because they are a "go-getter" and have crazy expectations for others. Person 1 thinks I'm lazy because they are a clean freak" (and so on). The problem is then addressed as such.
Demonstrated below:
But had Person 2 been centered, and the situation may have looked a bit similar to this:
See the difference in FOCUS.
In this situation Person 1 would still approach the situation in the same manner as in the first example. But this time, Person 2 would have much more resource in fixing the problem. The problem presented being, "You didn't do the dishes. You are a lazy and dirty person, you don't care about me, you want me to do all the work". Notice how not only the expansion of resources in Person 2's vision, but ALSO! notice how Person 1 does not sit in Person 2's vision! When evaluating the presented problem, Person 2 does not even consider Person 1 as part of the problem nor as a part of the solution. Meaning, it can not be "Person 1's fault".
Revealing that, Person 2's response can be predicted completely different than in the first example. Person 2 might say, "Do you feel that the dishes being dirty is the problem or is the problem the flaws you see in my character?" This would be asked for mere clarification by Person 2. Person 1 would be forced to think their way through problem identification and may say, "I feel that way about you because you didn't do the dishes". It would be silly, and pretty illogical to create all of those feelings over one event of dirty dishes. So that may bring Person 1 to say, "I've felt like this for a while; the problem is the dirty dish event in conjunction with Past Event A, B, and C". Then the problem becomes more identified that Person 1's problem really is Person 2, and not the dishes. Then with a similar course of action by Person 2, Person 2 can ask more clarifying questions, this time concerning the Events of A, B, and C and help resolve the conflict.
Now backing up a bit, say Person 1 had responded to Person 2's question of, "Do you feel that the dishes being dirty is the problem or is the problem the flaws you see in my character?" with "the dishes not being done is the problem, not you" then Person 2 could offer the idea that Person 1 could have cleaned the dishes and resolved the problem immediately.
Notice how interaction with even just 1 centered person can open up the vision of someone seeing only between peripherals?
Okay, but now consider this. If Person 2 had shifted their focus over to Person 1 during the duration of the conflict, Person 1 would then come into their concern. Seeing Person 1, Person 2 might realize that telling Person 1 that they could do the dishes on their own in the first place might upset Person 1, and if they were concerned about this, Person 2 might decide to do the dishes to please Person 1. See what is demonstrated here? Bringing other people into our vision, by shifting our focus off of ourselves, we have concern for them and their feelings.
Funny thing is, we call that a good thing. However, if 2 people are both centered, their conflict resolution, as well as raw interaction would look something like this:
If both people were centered, and the dishes being dirty was the problem, it wouldn't matter who did them, because neither Person is inside of either's vision, only the dishes.
When we live centered, we don't need the concern for others. Because if everyone were centered, the actions of others would NOT AFFECT us. Actions may affect us, and that's what we could identify as needing modification, not the Person. So to leave the Person out of it when discussing resolution, the Person creating the action would then realize they had the power to modify the action (as they were the cause), and change their actions accordingly for the desire of a different outcome. Never as a Personal Change because the Person would have never been the Problem.
Less time pointing fingers and more time spent on productivity. We could look to creating a common goal instead of a common individual. Because, how boring?
You see?
When we remain with center focus, our PERCEPTION of the world is NOT LIMITED, nor is our PROJECTION of it.
Because this (below) is able to take place...
This is then what happens:
The input from the world is interchangeable with our personal output, based upon our experiences.
Our input is interchangeable with our personal output, based on individual personal experience, so lets break this down.. We are all individuals in different parts of the world, all then with varying inputs. So then, that must mean, with varying inputs we must all have varying outputs, yet we all live in the same world. What does this do to interaction?
See below.
Here you see, we all share the SAME WORLD, with different interchangeable input/outputs.
When we come together, look at what comes into our vision! Something we would not have in our sight otherwise!
ONE MORE TIME, if our individual input/output is interchangeable, then what happens to us?!
We learn and grow.
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