it's all about the optics

Think of all the advice you’ve heard about seeing. What you see is what you get. It’s hiding in plain sight; open your eyes! Don’t believe everything you see. A picture is worth a thousand words. I know it’s true – I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

We rely heavily on our eyesight, more so than any of our other senses. I think that works against us for several reasons but mainly because we can be easily fooled or misled by what we see. It’s important to remember that. We see what we expect to see, whether in actual fact, on television or any visual media. It’s called selective attention Remember the classic experiment? A room is full of people in black tees and white tees are passing a basketball back and forth. The observer is tasked with counting how many times the ball passes from one person to another on the white t-shirt team.

Stop right here if you’ve never heard of this experiment and take the test…it’s fun, takes two minutes and I’ll bet you’ll get the right answer.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

At the end of the test, when asked to provide a number, you are also asked about the gorilla in the room. Of course, most viewers never saw the gorilla for two reasons: First, they were trying to count the number of times the basketball was passed; second, they were never told to expect to see a gorilla in the room.  

Here’s another thing about what we see. Our vision sees the world in a small band of electromagnetism known as the visible spectrum. But there are other spectrums we cannot see like microwaves (you’ve heard of them, right?) or x-rays (you know them). There are many other wave functions that you may or may not have heard of that could be seen, but just not by us. Some animals, and who knows who or what else, can see more than we can. Or hear. Or smell, or taste.

I just suggest all this as a reminder that there is much more out there than you perceive. So, when you are feeling so sure of yourself, pause. Take a beat. Recognize that what you see may not be the whole picture.  

© 2026 www.megreilly360.com

3/30/2026