Reading Essay #3 is complete.

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Annie Dillard's "Seeing" is a fragment of her book "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek". There weren't that fragment in my book, I think it was in the college handbook which I didn't find in the open access. So, I've found the whole book on the Internet. Although I haven't got any tasks to it, I still managed to get a great essay with the next tasks of mine:

1. Write about Annie's experience of 'seeing'. Did she feel the same when she was a child?
2. What is the philosophy of 'seeing'? Is it positive to take over the practice Annie describes to 'see' something other's eyes?
3. Annie seems to be 'the man of present'. How is it correlating with other philosophical systems of 'seeing' and 'knowing'?
4. What do you think about Annie's expression 'you see nothing except your predicted template in your mind'? Did you ever try to see things with other perspective than usual? What could you say about people who were forced to 'see' (like literally in Dillard's text, the blind from birth who were cured) or comprehend their world in entirely new colors?
5. There are many examples of the people blind from birth who gained sight. What do you think of the success of their therapy? Could something help them to apply their sight to their value system?

I hope my questions aren't worse than they were in the college handbook or in my ENGL 99 book of essays (well, I can't access to the exact handbook of the college where I took my program from). But it's my training, I think it's OK.

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Seeing

"I know that I know nothing", Socrates said. I think that's the main overall idea of A.Dillard's "Seeing".

"Seeing", according to Annie, is perception all the details that create the present. Mrs.Dillard describes the process when she's been a child. Small miracles of nature on Tinker Creek made young Annie sway around. But to see all of them you need to see them. And every time you see something, you are curious about those infinity of small miracles around you (no matter you're an adult or a child). You understand that the universe is much wider than you've probably thought, and there are much more happening around you, but you only lure around in the darkness instead of seeing...

I guess that the experience of perception written in her book are filtered with Annie's adult perception. It's very detailed, even makes some readers suffer (or, maybe, I've just melted my brain reading English news and listening BBC Radio pop songs, and that's why I consider Annie's text difficult?..) But I'm convinced that there are always different experiences in different seeing. When you're a child, you believe that the world much wider that when you're an adult. As an adult, you've already made yourself boundaries when you think you can hold your life 'on truck'. And even if you try to describe some experience from your childhood, you'll almost obviously use your adult patterns of describing and seeing the same experience.

The Dillard's philosophy of 'seeing' is just rewritten Socrates' idea. If you discover something curious, you might ask new questions based on what you've knowing just now. When finding the answers, you understand that there are more questions that need to be answered, etc. The point of view could enhance infinitely, and this process just can't stop if you see and think freely.

I see also the opportunity of this philosophy of thinking. We can think and consider about something using our patterns of thinking (like patterns of 'seeing' which Dillard described). And we will think over things that we can think because of our patterns. The real truth is very difficult, and one man can't understand the whole truth. He can hold and apply just the part of it, according to his patterns.

Applying all existing patterns in your mind, or destroying all patterns you have to 'just see the present' leads to madness, as Annie writes. I agree with that. Patterns is our tools of understanding what we see. As Annie describes, 'darkness appalls, but the light blazes' - you might turn into 'fixed mindset' man when you deny the world around you, but you'll be overwhelmed by its beauty if you get rid of all your 'habitual' points of view. So, my idea is the idea of balance: you need to use your patterns of perception as a tool, but not loose curiosity and ability to enjoy because of them.

I think, that idea finds the approval in the Annie's examples of people who was blind from birth but gained the sight. Those people's patterns of perception were linked with tonguing, nosing, feeling and hearing, and were not linked with the sight. Man gains the tool, but can't use it: new experience from the sight is overwhelming and frustrating, but he can't handle it with habitual patterns. Someone trying to adopt, when someone give up and start to live an old way.

It could probably be a solution in helping people like this to set up new 'sight patterns' to the new sense. It's very curious how people with the same diseases looks at the world. When I think about recent-blind people I imagine the painter who could create arts of the world which is fully unknown to us, 'seeing' people. To be honest, it's gonna be amazing.

The more important meaning of 'gaining sight' I see in alignment area. People have different values in their lives. What happens when you start seeing world with the new side? How it influences to your values and to your life? It's fascinating, especially if you try to discover the real truth around you. You begin to change, so does your values and your lifestyle. It's very important to not do it uncontrollably, switching 'from appalling darkness to blazing light'. There's no fulfillment and no happiness if you'll become overwhelmed being tied before. That's the idea of gaining the truth by religious searches, and by talking with the God particularly in Christianity; in Orthodox, God doesn't want to hurt us with His presence, and we can't see Him in this life. We can see His truth only, in that size we can understand it.

What is 'seeing'? Is it simply discovering the truth concealed behind our stereotypes and behavioral patterns? Or the perception process that depends on our eyes only? I think it's very useful to think about it. The most important idea here for me is the subjectivity of seeing process and the necessity of boundaries in our mind.

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Also, Dillard's book is VERY difficult to read because of the nature-describing style. (at page 6 of 16, I was already dying of so many describes, spending around a half an hour in trying to prevail JUST ONE PAGE! :) ) Nevertheless, the "Seeing" fragment contained many words I haven't know until reading. The book gave me great vocabulary additions:

• Chipped off - when you tear the one rock into some small, it becomes chipped off.
• A sycamore - a plant named "Платан" in Russian.
• To lurk about - to walk around something, like in the streets, without any specific goal.
• The rueful way - your way becomes rueful when you're temporarily said and/or permanently grumpy.
• A muskrat - an animal named "Ондатра" in Russian.
• A muskrat kit - muskrats have a kit inside theirs dens. It contains leaves, branches and fur, I think, and it helps muskrats to make their den comfortable and softy.
• To pick out something is to see the needle in the haystack.
• A sedge - a plant named "Камыш" in Russian.
• Flowers are appearing from buds. Plants are growing up from sprouts.
• Drops of seawater are something you can find and collect on the shore, like shells or sea glass.
• An oriole is a bird named "Иволга" in Russian.
• A nonchalance is a carelessness.
• An osage orange - a tree named "маклюра, китайский апельсин, адамово яблоко, красная шелковица, лжеапельсин" in Russian.
• A shale - "Сланец".
• To squint - щуриться.
• A cattail - "Рогоз".
• A lilac - a plant named "Сирень" in Russian.
• A willow - a tree named "Ива" in Russian.
• A cleft - расщелина.
• To dazzle ~ to blind, to appall ~ to scare.
• A crayfish - рак (as an animal, a disease = cancer)
• A loblolly pine - сосна ладанная.
• Exhilaratingly - with great joy
• A petal, a lobe - a flower has them. Some flowers have 5 petals, sunflowers have ~400.
• A wineskin - there you might carry water or wine during on-foot journey.
• To lope off - to run easily with long steps.
• A killdeer - крикливый зуёк