by Robert Warren
When you see a baby’s eyes you can see there’s just an innocence there to be admired. There’s beauty behind the eyes. Tina Beta, author, once said, “True love doesn’t need proof. The eyes told what heart felt.” Eyes are special. Looking into them we can sometimes hear what isn’t spoken.
When it comes to babies’ eyes they help us see the world in a new way. There’s this sense for exploration. There’s a sense of visual stimulation. We can learn a lot about babies’ eyes but we just have to look. When babies are born they are born with the ability to see and usually hone in on the objects eight to ten inches from their eyes. It’s a whole buzz of visual stimulation. They haven’t learned yet to focus between two separate objects.
Eight months later nonetheless they are already developing depth perception, getting a better sense of color vision, and with nine to 12 months they can judge distances fairly well and throw with precision. Now what can we learn? We can further learn how to better enjoy babies’ eyes by figuring out how to apply the way they see… to the way we see.
When it comes to babies eyes there is something that pulls you in. It’s like the cat from the movie Shrek, Puss in Boots, when his eyes get all large, glisten and twinkle in the light. It just captures your attention as the baby looks with some sort of newness to the world. A whole life to be explored.
There’s an interesting thing about babies and the way they see. They pick up new objects and they are in awe of them. They also move their entire bodies sometimes around an object to explore it. Nothing else matters at times besides them and the object.
Now here’s something to think about. How can we as people see the world this way again? In a way that we appreciate the world, are in awe of the world and connect with life as we know it again. We must give thanks and readjust our mindset so we can appreciate things for as they are, not what we want them to be. Babies look at life honed in on things they are interested in, we should try to do the same.
Joseph Cornell once said, “”Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time, with eyes of a child, fresh with wonder.” That’s what we must try to think to do when we look at things. To see it as though it is the first time.
In the movie Baby’s Day Out, made in 1994 a child named Bink (played by both Adam Robert and Jacob Joseph,) gets kidnapped and then escapes running around the city. The kidnappers chase the baby, and try to get him but in the end the baby returns to his family. This movie demonstrates the curiousness of a child in the world, their value to exploration, and how they see things. Babies have an innocence to where we totally don’t understand how to cope with but that’s the beauty of it. We must try to find the value of enjoyment in exploitation that little kids have and that’s part of the secret.
Constance Zimmer once said, “Seeing the world through the eyes of a child is the purest joy that anyone can experience.” The question is how can we begin to see again like that? How can we as adults find that vision we lost as we grew older? We must challenge ourselves to see again with a fresh perspective every time we see something. If we can manage to fully open our eyes, focus on one thing, drop the phone for a few minutes and just try to enjoy them we can better appreciate the lives we live.
There is a reason for meditation, religion, and psychology. It is to make us reevaluate ourselves and better appreciate the lives we live. All on a fresh perspective. The dictionaries and thesaurus can also help us with this. So what does it mean to appreciate anyways?
According to Webster, to appreciate can mean a few things; “to grasp the nature, worth, quality, or significance of: to value or admire highly: to judge with heightened perception or understanding, be fully aware of” and : “to recognize with gratitude.” Who could’ve thought one word could mean so much? This is appreciation, which synonymous of that is to; acknowledge, enjoy, welcome, be appreciative, be indebted, and be obliged. You see? Sometimes we say we appreciate something but do we even realize the depth of what we are saying? It isn’t a small thing and this is the first step to seeing like a baby, realize for us to see with fresh eyes, we must give ourselves a fresh mind.
One thing our society really does appreciate however is babies. We have a fascination with them. It’s movies like The Lion King, where Rafiki holds up baby Simba on pride rock, it’s songs like “Baby Shark” where it gets put in repeat, and played on every corner, it’s shows like Rugrats, where the babies go on adventures, that show obviously our society has some sort of obsession with babies. It’s an appreciation we have for them. We can all relate. We can all connect. Now how can we use this baby obsession to connect with others? We can do this by seeing through baby eyes.
We can open up about ourselves through the eyes of a child where we just share all our innocence with the world and purify it. That is what I am getting at. It’s the fresh perspectives that matter. Also, sure, we can also share our secret talents, like Baby Jack Jack from The Incredibles. We can show our dedication like Boss Baby but we must be careful how we explore our society and put right into the world of chaos.
Akiane Kramarik once said, “If we experienced life through the eyes of a child, everything would be magical and extraordinary. Let our curiosity, adventure and wonder of life never end.”
Like Disneyland, Disney World, Universal Studios, Six Flags, and many other places, we must open our eyes again to see like a child. We must appreciate our lives. We must try to see our new lives through the fresh eyes of baby eyes.