The Big Picture

Back in the late 70’s I had a martial arts sensei at a dojo in East L.A. who taught me something about vision: See the big picture, he said. Not a unique turn of phrase, to be sure, but he went on to elaborate. 

He had learned this mantra from his platoon sergeant on recon duty in the tall grasses of Southeast Asia—and he had come to depend on it for his survival. The idea, according to the sergeant, was not to focus on any one thing in particular unless and until it became absolutely necessary.  If you concentrated your attention too narrowly, you might soon be dead.  And you’d never see it coming.

Instead, he said, expand your vision.  Open your eyes like a wide-angle lens, taking in everything, all at once, everything you can see in front of you and everything on the periphery.  Your eyes and the brain they feed have a remarkable capacity to inventory and understand what you’re seeing.  

Notice where the shadows fall.  Do any of them seem unusual or out of place in the rest of the picture?  Observe the wind riffling over the sea of grass.   Is there a patch of green that’s out of sync, or moving in the wrong direction?  Be aware of your own presence, your movement through this scene.  How does it alter the panorama?  What observable clues are you leaving in your wake?

It’s a simple way of seeing, my sensei told me, that I could apply to every part of my life.  See the whole and know your part in it, he said.  Understand the design, the integrated logic of it.  Be present and available to possibility.   

Challenges or opportunities may present themselves, sometimes when least expected, but you’ll be ready for them.  You’ve already seen them coming—because you’ve seen the big picture.

SCARS

I think it was John Steinbeck who once described a man’s life by observing the coat he was wearing: rumpled, frayed and tattered, the evidence of survived catastrophes large and small displayed for all to see in the wounded weave of the fabric. 

Some men wear their scars with pride, like chevrons of rank or badges of courage—as if they might take credit for the same, practical imperative that drives a cockroach to seek and endure.  But a cockroach is a hardier survivor than a soft man.  I doubt he spends much energy fretting about his adversities, or celebrating his victories.

I look at a tear in my jacket or an old burn on the heel of my hand, and the pithiest comment my mind can manufacture is usually, “Oh, yeah, I remember that one.  Dodged a bullet there.” 

But there are times when I see my scars as reminders of what I’ve discovered along the paths I’ve chosen, simple instructions in a semester that is all too short.  Memory is my teacher.  Life is the objective examiner.  At the end of the term, there’s really no prize.  No score.  No diploma.  Just the lessons learned and the lesions earned.

Or, stretching the analogy to another metaphor, I think about my kayak . . . 

The nicks and scratches in my boat’s hull are a map of my history on the river, a tangible record of where I’ve been and how I got there: the put-ins and portages, the opportunities taken and missed.  The good decisions and the mistakes made.  This ding came from that big black rock hidden beneath the riffles.  That scrape was gouged by an old tree limb lurking in the current, waiting for me at the point of a tell-tale V etched on the surface.  My battered boat admonishes me each time I load it on my car or push it into the water:  See the signs!  Watch for riffles and V’s!  Read the river!

So, our scars become more than a mere record of our past.  They instruct us in our present course.  Pay attention.  Be aware.  Live and learn, they say.  Live and learn.  The rip in my coat reminds me to skirt the brambles, even while laughing and chasing my dog.  The shiny, pitted line on the heel of my hand tells me that 4th of July sparklers burn children, even when the metal is charred and black.

In the morning, when I take my shower, I often touch the puckered skin on my thigh where the knife point entered.  I acutely remember Mom knocking on the bathroom door of the old house on Superior Street:  “What are you doing in there?”   “Uh, nothing . . .” I replied.  In fact, I was sitting on the toilet, blue jeans down around my ankles, whittling a twig with my Boy Scout pocket knife.  The knife slipped and the rest is history. 

When Mom was bandaging the wound, she asked me how it happened.  “Must have been a nail in my pocket” was the best lie I could muster.  She looked me in the eye and all she said was, “Mm-hmm,” and wiped the tear from my cheek with her apron.

In the morning, when I take my shower, I still wince when I touch the old scar.  I remember the surprise and pain of the cutting.  I remember the shame of the lie and the forgiveness in Mom’s apron.  I rarely inventory my scars, recent or ancient.  But, when I happen to notice, I appreciate them.  I cherish them.  I have earned them all, sometimes with naiveté or sheer stupidity, other times with grace.  I’ve searched myself for pride but I can’t find it in this reckoning.  There’s no sense of accomplishment here.  No, it’s not pride.  It’s gratitude. 

And I think wisdom is not a prize we win.  It’s something bestowed.  It’s Life’s endowment to us.  We can accept it or not, but it’s always there for the taking.  Wisdom is a gift—wrapped up in our scars.

Live and learn.  Live and learn.