The Revealing Power of Art

Five hundred years ago Leonardo Da Vinci said that "most
people look without seeing." He referred to the fact that people
don't really notice what their eyes perceive, and instead, only see
the interpretation of the visual information, its symbolic
representation.

For example, everyone can easily tell whether a face on a picture
belongs to a man or a woman. But how many of us can tell what
exactly makes a face look like a man's or a woman's face?
Or, how many of us know that the eyes are actually in the middle of
the head, and not closer to the top?

The same observation applies to the other senses, most important of
those are auditory (hearing) and kinesthetic
(feeling, sensation). If you don't believe me, try singing the bass
guitar part in Pink Floyd's "The Wall", or remember the
exact words someone used to describe something exciting to you. Did
they mostly use words related to vision, hearing, or feeling?

The reason we do not remember such specific detail is because our
unconscious mind gladly preprocesses the direct sensory information
for us, and presents it to our conscious mind in a simplified symbolic
form. In other words, we see things through perceptual
filters. Normally, these filters help us immensely by freeing
our consciousness from processing vast amounts of data, making our
routine daily activities much easier.

However, there are times when we want to see things the way they
really are. The trouble is that we get so much used to the filters,
that we start to believe what we consciously perceive is the reality!
Getting someone to realize that they have been seeing symbols all
their life instead of real objects often takes people by surprise. I
was surely surprised when I learned that the eye line is exactly in
the middle of a human head, and not close to the top, as I
always thought. Taking a photograph and measuring it with a ruler for
the first time in my life was a revelation...

The question is, How do we learn to see (hear, feel)
again? And my answer is, Learn the Arts.

Visual: Learning to Draw

Learning to draw pencil photo-realistic pictures is probably the
best and fastest way to start seeing the real shapes, colors, and
shades of the objects around us. Get the book The New Drawing on
the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, or search the Web
for drawing instructions like
this one, and start
seeing things again!

Auditory tonal: Playing music, Singing

Music is by far the most abundant and the most beautiful source of
complex combinations of sounds. I found that learning to play your
favorite tunes by ear (without the music scores) is the most demanding
activity for listening to the actual tone and rhythm of a song. It
takes a while to learn, and as you practice it more and more, you
start noticing how the simple sounds are put together to create this
moving, sensational melody. If you do not play any instrument, then
singing is a good replacement for it.

Auditory digital (words): Professional writing, public speaking

Words are another important (and very different) dimension of
hearing, and I often separate auditory tonal and auditory digital
perceptions into two separate categories.

If you want to learn to notice the actual words people speak, the
most direct way, of course, is to listen to the words. You will be
amazed at what some people utter at times, without even realizing what
they have said it. This constantly keeps me amused in otherwise
boring conversations or during those hypnotizing lectures.

However, just like with playing music or drawing realistic objects,
you truly learn to notice the bare words when you use them yourself,
and others critic you. So, start writing, if you have not yet. Or go
make a public presentation next time you have a chance. This does not
have to be a professional activity, it could be just a simple Web
site, or your diary, or a Blog
like this one!

Write random thoughts about things, curious ideas of the moment you
have, then make a speech about the most interesting observations
during a party at your friend's house!

And please, please! Accept all the criticism. This is how you
learn to improve your skills. Friends may laugh at you for the first
ten or twenty times, but then, as you get better at it, they will
start laughing with you, and will be asking for more.

Kinesthetic: Martial Arts, Dancing

The art of moving your body, both in martial arts and in any kind
of dancing, teaches you the sense of balance, the control of your
motions. You will be able to feel your movements more accurately, and
tell whether you are moving the way you want it. Just like with any
other art, this takes a lot of practice, and you will be amazed at the
vastness of feelings and sensations you will discover!

As a form of physical activity, you will also learn to pay
attention to your body, to the condition of your muscles, joints,
tendons, and even internal organs. This by itself is a great skill to
have, and I will give you an important example of its usefulness in
the next section...

In addition, feeling your body will help you better control your
emotions. The reason is, the emotions are encoded in your body as
kinesthetic feelings (did you know that?), but our conscious mind
perceives them as abstract symbols. For instance, "I feel
nervous" surely is much more symbolic and imprecise than "I
feel tension in my chest, my face and upper body is flaring with heat,
and the muscles in my shoulders and hips are so tight that they are
trembling".

Once you learn to notice how your emotions actually feel, without
the perceptual filters, you will be able to change them at will. For
example, if your shoulder and hip muscles become tense when you are
nervous, then relaxing them, and adding a solid calm warmth to your
stomach may be all you need to change the nervousness into confidence.
Wouldn't that be nice?

Gustatory (taste) and Olfactory (smell): Cooking, Wine Tasting

These two sensory inputs are often the least developed, since human
beings do not usually rely on them too much in our daily life.
However, even for those "rare" sensory inputs there are
activities for their development. The most obvious, and probably the
best of all, is, of course, cooking.

You surely love your mom's cooking, don't you? Well, OK, not all
moms can cook well, but most do. I love when my mom cooks something
tasty for sure! :-) But can you recreate those wonderful dishes
yourself? Can you figure out by taste and smell what went into it?
Or, if that sounds too complicated, can you get the recipe and do it
yourself? Remember that cooking, even when you have a precise recipe,
requires a lot of sniffing, tasting, feeling the texture of the food,
seeing the color of the crust, and so on. Rarely you can just follow
the steps blindly and get the result.

Cooking, like any other form of art, takes time to learn, and takes
time to do. If you are looking for a quicker treat, luckily, there is
one -- wine tasting. I do not need to explain you this one,
do I? :-) Go to your grocery or wine store, pick a few bottles of
various wines (you can start with cheap ones, some of them are
actually quite good!), invite a bunch of friends, and carefully taste
a little bit from each bottle. (The reason for having many friends is
to make sure you do not drink too much of the same wine, or you get
quickly drunk, and the exercise will become pointless.)

Write down your observations for each type of wine. What does it
taste like? How does it smell? What does it remind you of?

Of course, know your limit, take long breaks between each sample,
evaluate your condition (you have already mastered your kinesthetic
feelings, right?), and proceed only if you can comfortably handle it.

Enjoy!