I come to you because I want to see

This simple statement holds a paradox. 

On the one hand, every one of us has been able to see since the moment we were born. From the first light that touched our eyes as infants, vision has been our most natural faculty. Yet, on the other hand, the question immediately arises: What kind of seeing is that?

 

Is it merely the physical process of light waves striking the retina, translated into images by the brain? Or is it the deeper capacity to perceive the world as it truly is, beyond the filters, assumptions, and inherited concepts that frame our experience?

 

I invite you to consider what it really means to “see.”

 

The Prism of Conceptual Reality

 

Our vision, as it unfolds in daily life, is never pure. We do not encounter reality in its raw form. Instead, we meet it through the prism of a conceptual reality that we have inherited and built over time. Each culture, each society, and each individual overlays the world with interpretations, categories, and meanings.

 

Think of colour. To the physicist, colour is a wavelength of light, measurable in nanometers. To the artist, it is a palette of infinite shades and moods. To a culture, colour can be symbolic: white may mean purity in one tradition and mourning in another. We do not simply “see red”; we see “stop,” “danger,” or “passion,” depending on the context.

 

Thus, our world is not the world. It is a version of reality, filtered, coded, and translated by the human mind. We live in interpretations rather than in direct contact with things as they are.

 

The Subjective Creation of the Human Mind

 

This leads us to the recognition that the world we inhabit is, in a profound sense, a subjective creation. Neuroscience teaches us that our brains are prediction machines, constructing models of reality based on limited sensory input. Philosophy reminds us that our categories of thought shape what we perceive long before we consciously interpret it.

 

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that we never encounter the “thing-in-itself” — reality in its pure form — but only phenomena structured by the categories of human cognition. In other words, the very act of seeing is already conditioned by the structures of our mind.

 

From this perspective, the “objective world” is less a solid ground beneath us and more a shared dream we have agreed to sustain. It is coherent enough to allow communication and cooperation, but subjective enough to allow profound differences in perception, belief, and meaning.

 

The Comfort and the Danger of Theories

 

Because reality is elusive, humans have always sought to stabilize it with theories and beliefs. We create maps of the world: scientific laws, religious doctrines, cultural narratives, personal philosophies. These maps are indispensable. Without them, we would be lost in a sea of sensory impressions, unable to make sense of anything.

 

Yet the danger lies in confusing the map with the territory. Many people come to believe that their theories are not just tools or interpretations but actual images of reality itself. Scientific laws are treated as if they were eternal truths rather than provisional models. Cultural beliefs are clung to as absolutes rather than perspectives. Even our personal convictions, formed through experience, are often mistaken for reality itself.

 

This is the condition of naïve realism: the tendency to assume that what we see and think is identical with what is.

 

Blind Seers

 

The tragedy of naïve realism is that it blinds us. We become blind seers — people who think they see clearly but in truth remain trapped in their own conceptual frameworks. Like prisoners in Plato’s cave, we mistake the shadows on the wall for reality itself.

 

This blindness is not physical but spiritual and intellectual. It closes the door to wonder, humility, and dialogue. If I believe my perspective is the only valid one, then I no longer have reason to listen to you, to learn from another culture, or to question myself.

 

In this sense, the greatest obstacle to true vision is not ignorance but certainty. The more convinced we are that our map is the world, the less able we are to see the world itself.

 

The Call to See Anew

 

So what does it mean to say: “I come to you because I want to see”?

It is a call to awaken. It is a desire to move beyond the comfort of ready-made maps and venture into the raw, uncertain terrain of reality. It is the courage to question the stories we tell ourselves, the humility to admit that our vision is limited, and the openness to encounter other perspectives.

 

To see in this deeper sense is not to abandon all theories and beliefs, but to hold them lightly — as tools, not as prisons. It is to use our maps without mistaking them for the territory. It is to let the world surprise us, unsettle us, and teach us.

 

Toward a Vision of Wholeness

 

If our habitual seeing is fragmented and filtered, then the task of philosophy, spirituality, and even science is to help us move toward a more holistic vision. This does not mean a vision without concepts — that is impossible — but a vision aware of its own filters.

 

Such seeing is compassionate, because it recognizes that others also live within their own prisms. It is creative, because it acknowledges that reality is not fixed but open to interpretation and transformation. And it is humble, because it admits that what we see is always partial, never final.

 

This vision of wholeness does not blind itself with certainty but remains open, curious, and alive.

 

“I come to you because I want to see.”

Perhaps this is the most human of all desires — the desire to see the world as it is, to see ourselves as we are, and to see each other beyond the distortions of prejudice, habit, and dogma.

 

We may never escape the prism of conceptual reality entirely. But we can learn to recognize it, to question it, and to look through it with new eyes. In doing so, we take a step beyond naïve realism and become not blind seers, but learners, adventurers, and witnesses to the mystery of being.

 

And so the invitation stands: not merely to see as we have always seen, but to see anew.