Do You See What I See ?

 
This week we’re getting back to normal in Monaghan’s 4^th largest workwear store….well, as normal as it ever gets. The stock take is over, we got it done in a day ! It used to take us 3 days and we’d be crawling over and under shelves, arguing about someone’s ‘7’ looking like a ‘1’ , a ‘9’ that was clearly a ‘0’ and generally falling out with each other. Our stocktakes also used to take place on New Year’s day, so we were invariably hung over and freezing as well.

                                           So three years ago we decided to move our year end to June and also radically cut back on the number of styles and brands we carry. Particularly on Brix and in our store 80% of our sales come from Haix, Snickers and Dassy, so we’re concentrating on them going forward. We used to spend whole days counting thousands of  latex gloves and socks that sold in great volumes bit made us no money at all. It took us a long time to see that.

                                         We don’t always see what’s staring us in the face. This week we’re offering £200 worth of Snickers and Haix to the best answer at the end ……


 
Do you see what I see ?
The short answer is ‘No’. Even I don’t really see what I see. I was in 5^th class in primary school, aged 9 or 10 and there was a free eye test. I was told that I needed glasses. I’d never realized that I’d needed them before. I sat in the third row from the front and could read the blackboard. If I sat further back things weren’t so clear, but without having any terms of reference, I simply assumed that everyone else saw exactly the same as me….or didn’t.
                                When I wore my glasses for the first time I was astonished to discover that there was an old house at the far side of Quiglough, the lake behind our house. I’d never seen it before. Everything was in sharper focus. Even colours were clearer. It was miraculous, and then it was ordinary, and then it wasn’t even thought of. We very quickly take for granted things we were initially incredibly grateful for.
                                And that’s before we get into what we are actually seeing and what our brains are telling us we see. If you take your phone /camera and sweep quickly left to right or wobble it about and look back at it you can see a blur. But our brain compensates for that blur in real life, effectively removing it from our vision and memory. Our brains also interpret colours completely different to how birds, bees, and other animals do. Freaky , huh ?
                              You and I,, can look at exactly the same thing and see and perceive two completely situations. My perspective is obviously the correct one, you poor fool. I have been fortunate enough to visit the Musee d’Orsay in Paris a couple of times and I have stood in front of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ for ages…until one of the curators asked me to move on. I see magic. I think it is wonderful. The second time I was staring at it , someone behind me said “What’s the fuss ? It looks like it was painted by a 4 year old ?”. I coughed into my hand saying something that sounded like ‘wanker’, no, wait, that’s exactly what I said. I turned around and this lady smiled at me, she’d heard what I’d said and quipped “Aren’t we all ?”.

I smiled back and said “ You have me there, but this is a work of genius, how can it be compared to the work of a 4 year old ?”.

“It is the work of a mad man.” She said.

I was going to explain to her that this painting from 1889 had tortured Van Gogh’s soul for ages. He battled for months to capture the light, the perspective, the right location. He viewed the stars as destinations that we visit after our deaths, “Hope is in the stars” he wrote. I was going to tell the lady that when I look at this painting, I see hope.

But then I thought, I can’t be arsed, and nodded towards her to say goodbye, raised my hand to my mouth and again coughed the word “wanker”.

   For the record I have paintings by several 4 year olds hanging in my own office, and I see beauty and genius in them to. You might simply see a red stick man, a rather fat, smiling snowman, and a picture of the world with a bee flying above it.

                                                      It would be boring if we all saw everything the same. This applies to situations as well as actual sights. This morning I attended a strength and conditioning class. As part of the circuits we were doing I used a bench press for the first time. Our instructor, Bronagh, quickly spotted that I had the upper body strength of ….a 4 year old, and suggested that I simply use the bar without weights until I got the hang of it, but , seeing that I was crestfallen hastily added that the bar itself weighed 20kgs. I managed to lift it 10 times and then repeated that four times over the session. By the time I reached lift 8 in the 4th session I could feel my arms wobbling and it took a Herculean effort to do the last one. I looked to my left and spotted a lady, half my size lifting the same bar, but with what looked like tractor tyres attached at each end. She saw that I was looking and winked at me. She probably sees a tired elderly gent who’s wandered into the wrong class and is thinking “Oh, bless.” I looked back at my empty 20kg bar. I puffed out my ample chest and thought “I don’t care, I still deserve a medal !”.

                      
So for today’s competition simply tell us something that you see, or have seen, completely different to everyone else, and we’ll pick a winner.
 
Toodles,
Paul