04-20-2010, 01:25 PM
It is a though-provoking question, and I thank you for posting it!
It has taught me to see. It would be the third time I have learned to see. It has also helped me to appreciate what is around me in ways I had never known to do.
Early in my youth, I took up astronomy as a hobby, and eventually I taught myself how to see at the telescope eyepiece. One tip provided by the literature blessing the hobby was to actually take paper and pencils and draw what you think you see. Eventually you go back and you can see that your earliest efforts with the same equipment were not as detailed as what you draw these days. Yes, your drawing improves, but so does your ability to see more detail.
Then, I joined the Armoured Corps of the Canadian Armed Forces and was taught how to use my eyes to detect humans and their machines hidden behind camouflage, or just parked behind bushes that obstructed clear vision of them.
When I joined the hobby, I was amazed that I had to learn a wholely different type of seeing. I had to learn what bark looks like, what rusty rails look like, what a frog looks like, what ballast looks like, even how tracks look when viewed standing in their midst as they disappear into the distance. So, the hobby, for me, has improved my ability to discern better what is around me, but also to appreciate it more. There is much at which to marvel.
-Crandell
It has taught me to see. It would be the third time I have learned to see. It has also helped me to appreciate what is around me in ways I had never known to do.
Early in my youth, I took up astronomy as a hobby, and eventually I taught myself how to see at the telescope eyepiece. One tip provided by the literature blessing the hobby was to actually take paper and pencils and draw what you think you see. Eventually you go back and you can see that your earliest efforts with the same equipment were not as detailed as what you draw these days. Yes, your drawing improves, but so does your ability to see more detail.
Then, I joined the Armoured Corps of the Canadian Armed Forces and was taught how to use my eyes to detect humans and their machines hidden behind camouflage, or just parked behind bushes that obstructed clear vision of them.
When I joined the hobby, I was amazed that I had to learn a wholely different type of seeing. I had to learn what bark looks like, what rusty rails look like, what a frog looks like, what ballast looks like, even how tracks look when viewed standing in their midst as they disappear into the distance. So, the hobby, for me, has improved my ability to discern better what is around me, but also to appreciate it more. There is much at which to marvel.
-Crandell