☁️ The clouds look different over Berlin
When interpretation blindly follows perception
The train carries me through Brandenburg as I gaze out of the window. Its movement drawing lines into the countryside as the close-up world rushes by. With unfocused eyes, I see dashes of green blurring into orange and brown. Like a paintbrush stroke spreading colors on the window. A top, a vast sky with sheep-like clouds wandering over it like a herd roaming the flat plains of Brandenburg. Their distinct shape and size against the canvas of a clear blue sky amazes me. ‘The clouds look different over Berlin’, I think to myself.
I lived in Berlin for 5 years. I once studied the names and shapes of clouds over Brandenburg for a skydiving license. But I never truly recognized them as anything special. It took 2 years of absence and a rushing train ride towards the buzzing city of Berlin for my attention to get enveloped by their uniqueness. How did I never recognize?
The ordinary. It arises as our mind imposes structure on the world. Automatically discarding the familiar. In the blink of an eye, we only see what stands out against the backdrop of our past experiences. Consciousness perceiving reality through a filtered glass. Fading the colors of all that is known to shades of grey.
What remains is only the colorful new. The stimulating. We wander the world looking for shiny objects. Something remarkable to imprint into our craving consciousness as the interest in the known has faded. In the extremes, creating the endless chase for excitement and exhilaration. A thirst that grows with every drop we swallow.
What could be attributed to human nature is ever more fostered in today’s world. Pervasive across many areas from business to technology to art, fashion, or leisure. While the value of the new is not to be downplayed, it is in its contrast that the ordinary tends to arise.
Flash forward. I lie on my back in a flat within which I have experienced a summer of surprises. Staring at a coffered ceiling that has been looming over me for weeks. As I lay there blown apart with emotions inhaling the debris that is a mixture of her and me, I think to myself: “Shit! Not again!”.
The ceiling above always looked a bit odd to me. Now laying there I finally make out the little embroiled shell-like carvings. Edge to edge their negative forming a star. So ordinary. So seemingly insignificant. For weeks I had lived underneath this ceiling. Completely oblivious. What else may I have not seen in the past in my saturated gaze upon the world?
Obviously, the point is not the distinct uniqueness of these clouds or these shells. It is the ignorance and wonderlessness with which one can catch the mind interpreting the stream of experiences that present themselves.
It makes me question past experiences and relationships. Because as we ignore the seemingly ordinary in the world around us, so we do with the world in others. Once we get to know someone, we believe we understand them. Similar to our environments we look for something new. Disregarding too quickly the expected behaviors and mannerisms that our mind pre-determined to be „this person“. Taking the known for granted. Becoming ignorant to the wonder that hides in plain sight as part of the known.
I tend to observe it in me and others. Even in relationships that transcend my grasp with their duration and familiarity. Similar patterns of the granted arising. People seemingly co-existing without registering what was once so special about the other. Logically being able to remind themselves of it, but emotionally faded.
Then I wonder. How was it when it all started? I envision them meeting for the first time and getting to know each other. One showing affection with a small gesture: making a coffee, helping move some furniture, cooking a dinner. A heartfelt “thank you” rolling over the lips as the warmth of another’s action is reflected in one’s vocation.
After a while, one saying “I love you” for the first time. Not in place of a shorthand “goodbye” as one leaves through the door, but with the goal of making the other truly understand. Eyes locked, conveying without a doubt the gratefulness one feels for the other’s existence.
Last summer has been a whirlwind of overwhelming experiences for me. Getting exposed to a person that I suddenly feel so deeply connected to. As anyone who ever fell in love will attest: everything is special while one drops into the unknown together.
And while the emotions have not faded yet, the summer has. As the winds picked up to brush the first leaves off the trees, I wondered what would remain when the first intense feelings had blown over as well.
So when I look at the ceiling and I realize ‘Shit! Not again!’, I recognise the mind’s automation. It became accustomed. It took something for granted. It created the ordinary. And with that, it became blind to a part of reality. Making me unable to appreciate what was looking straight at me.
And while I recognize that our minds have this natural inclination, in this relation I won’t accept it. Yes, there are many reasons for us complex organisms to have this mechanism. But to walk partially unconscious through the world taking people and places for granted is a choice. And for me, presence and recognition shall be the aspiration. An aspiration whose value now shines more than ever so blatantly clear.
As the fire of something new still burns so brightly within, I set the ambition. Now being the time to commit to memory what may need to be rekindled one day. When the damning ordinary tries to creep onto perception. For then to be prepared. Because for some things the stakes are too high not to be.
As I set this ambition, I recognize that I will fail. Not always, though on some days and in some places. But true courage only exists when one commits to something not without fear of failure but despite of it.
Because in a continuous stream of newly arising moments, there is always another chance to try. Every instance where the eyes meet, there is a fraction of a second to recognize the special in the seemingly ordinary. To recognize the uniqueness in a familiar face.
Today the clouds look different over Berlin. And I will strive for them to stay that way.