This is the first photo from the day Dobby chose me. Her eyes always seemed wise to me.
I always look into people's eyes. Regardless of how they dress or their circumstances, I believe you can recognize those with different perspectives, those with the potential to change things, those who can stretch the rules society imposes to keep everyone in line - you recognize them by their eyes. I can't describe it precisely but I know each is unique, but you can truly know a person by their eyes.
"You are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else." - Margaret Mead
If we've ever talked about these topics, you've definitely heard me quote this. We are all somehow unique in our own way.
Society homogenizes you, often unconsciously. A glance, an intervention, a sentence... something happens, and you live within those boundaries. They call this conformity. This phenomenon echoes what anthropologist Victor Turner called "communitas", a structured system where society maintains order by subtly punishing deviation.
Like Dostoevsky's underground man who proclaimed, "I am alone, and they are everyone", the individual who questions established norms often finds themselves isolated, marked as different.
- While still in school, you're corrected when you do something slightly different
- When you suggest you might change things, you're viewed as a weirdo
- When you engage with things outside the lines, people worry about your future on your behalf
It's some forms of what anthropologists call "social control mechanisms".
I feel it's all about keeping that spark alive. It's the one that lets you see possibilities others miss. When you surrender that spark, when you trade your weird, wonderful ideas for comfortable acceptance, you become another face in the crowd. And that light in your eyes fades a little more.
The world owes much to those who don't follow these rules and go their own way, keeping that light with them.
When the New York Times published an article titled Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly the Wright brothers were quietly assembling their plane. Just two months later, they achieved the first flight in human history. Whenever I hear people discussing something out of the box, I remember this story. I feel no need to pay attention to the vocal skeptics.
The Wright brothers' first flight, December 17, 1903
Never allow anyone to take that light from your eyes. It represents your uniqueness, and it's the essence of what makes you who you are.