You Don't See Anything

Look around you, you see things¹, there are things everywhere. But you can't see the vast majority of things. Right now, I'm looking at my screen. All I see is the HTML editor of this post. What I didn't notice the first, second or even millionth time I looked at a screen was the aspect ratio- the height's proportionality to its width. The aspect ratio has to be the same across all platforms so that someone looking at a video or picture on a computer will see it the same way as someone looking at it on a phone or on a TV. Have you ever changed the ratio of a picture on a Word or Pages document? It looks wrong. That's what happens without a consistent aspect ratio. Nonetheless, except if you're a screen fanatic, you didn't notice that at all. Furthermore, when I look at my screen, I literally don't see the liquid crystal display. They're these liquid crystals that make your computer work¹ and I don't see it at all. Isn't that crazy?

To take this even further, there are things we don't notice in ourselves! When you look at your body, all you see is your body. You don't notice the tens of thousands of years that it took for us to evolve like this. Every last centimeter of your body took thousands of tries, mistakes and corrections to get it to the way we are now. And that's something none of us can see, even if it's in our own bodies. Something else that you don't see is your insides. Unless you're a doctor, you probably don't know that well how the inside of your body works. You don't know what your insides look like even though they actually live inside you. Damn!

I'm not trying to take too much credit here. Roman Mars explores the design and architectural aspects of this. I thought the concept of not noticing the vast majority of what's around us is interesting and wanted to give my thoughts on it. One of my thoughts is that it that by not seeing what's around us, there's a lot of credit missing. For example, do you have any idea who built the building you're in³? Who designed it? Where did the architects get their inspiration from? Most likely you don't. Many people have dedicated years learning and practicing how to make a building just to receive no recognition from the people who are in it.

Another problem I find is that this phenomenon causes us to not know so many things. Because there is so much that's hidden in plane site, there's so much that's hidden. Not to sound like Tai Lopez, but there's so much knowledge to be unlocked. I mean, every little corner of everything has its history, its creators. There's just so much we can know and we don't.

To be clear, I know there's no way we could know every detail about everything- I have somewhat of a solution to this. My solution helps persons who would otherwise be unknown to get more credit than they would otherwise get, and not make us go crazy by finding out way too much information on everything. My solution is: whenever you get curious about something; who built a house, who did cats evolve from; look it up. That way, the persons who made something get recognition and you're learning. It's not that hard. Use the internet. Just look up what you're curious about. It'll give credit where it's due and make you smarter. It's a double win.

¹Unless you're blind, then you really don't see anything.
²I'm not some sort of screen genius or anything, I'm just going on Wikipedia to make a point about not noticing things.
³Just pick any building you've been in recently if you're reading this outside.