A Sharp Eye in the World of Soul-Color Blindness
Inspired by the artwork of the same name from an ongoing exploration of human perception and inner landscapes.
Although this painting was created in 2017, its message still feels deeply relevant today. There is something I have invested a long time trying to understand. How is it possible that some people fail to see what is obvious?
How is it possible that they do not recognize kindness when it stands right in front of them? Do they diminish people who have helped them? Do they take for granted what is precious? Do they interpret love as weakness, sincerity as naivety, and presence as something that naturally belongs to them?
Soul-Color Blindness
As usual, the answer came to me through layers of paint and the touch of my hand on the canvas. My understanding of this subject began to unfold while I painted A Sharp Eye in the World of Soul-Color Blindness.
Imagine standing beside a person who cannot distinguish colors. Completely color-blind. And imagine trying to explain to them the subtle difference between two shades of red. You speak about the depth of Alizarin Crimson, its transparency, and the warmth that separates it from Rose Red by only a few delicate tones. They look at you with confusion. Not because they do not want to understand, or because they are a bad person. But because they simply cannot see what you are describing.
It does not exist within their experience.
And then I realized that the same thing happens between people. We can recognize in others only what we have already encountered within ourselves. We see through our own spectrum of colors. Through our own capacity for love, responsibility, integrity, tenderness, depth, courage, and awareness. That is why we sometimes turn to the wrong people, expecting understanding. Not because they are ignorant. But because we are speaking a language they do not know.
And what happens to the person who has become aware of all their colors? How do they continue walking through a world that cannot see them in their entirety? How do they remain open when they are simplified? How do they remain gentle when they are misunderstood? How do they remain true to themselves while black-and-white perspectives attempt to place them into categories far too small for who they really are?
Perhaps this is exactly where the path that leads beyond begins.
A Story from the Shore
Recently, I cut my foot on sharp rocks by the sea. The wound was fairly deep, bleeding heavily, and with an almost unbearable pain. I called a man whom I thought would understand that I needed help. He heard my words through his own experience and assumed it was something minor. For me, it was not. What hurt me was not that he did not respond. What would have hurt me was continuing to expect him to see something that was not within his spectrum. At least not in that moment. Instead, I returned to my own center, lowered my foot into the water, and connected with the sea. The cold water stopped the bleeding. The pain softened. The swelling went down.
It is easy to return to our center when we know ourselves.
As I sat there waiting for my son to bring me my sandals from the boat, something happened that stayed with me far more vividly than the injury itself. There were many people on that boat. Friends. Acquaintances. Colleagues. People with whom I share conversations, experiences, and pieces of life. I did not expect help from everyone, nor would I have wanted to burden them by asking. In fact, I had reached out to only one person.
Yet while I was sitting on the rock, two other people from that same group approached me. I had not called them. I had not asked for their help. They showed up because they paid attention. They asked how I was and offered help. One of them offered me her sandals so I could walk back more comfortably.
Later, I learned something else.
While I was sitting by the shore, another friend on the boat, unaware of what had happened, noticed that my son was anxiously searching for something. She approached him and asked what was wrong. When she heard that I needed my sandals, she began asking around, trying to find out which pair was mine and where they were. Once she found them, she sent my son to bring them to me.
That moment stayed with me just as much as everything else. She did not respond because she had been asked. She responded because she paid attention. She saw a worried child and simply wondered how she could help.
The Colors Revealed Through Attention
In that moment, I understood even more clearly that our colors do not reveal themselves only through grand decisions or powerful words. They reveal themselves through attention. Through what we notice. Through what we choose not to overlook. Through the moment we decide that someone else’s problem becomes, even if only slightly, our own.
And then I realized something important. It is not a question of how long we have known someone. Or how much time we have spent together. Or how many times we have called each other friends. Sometimes the question is simply what a person can see.
We were all in the same place. Yet we did not all see the same thing. Not because someone did not care, or was a bad person. But because each of us reads the world through our own experience. Through our own values, needs, and priorities. Through our own sensitivity to what is happening around us.
That was the moment I stopped focusing on the person who did not recognize what was happening and began paying attention to those who did. To the people who did not wait to be called. To the people who could see. Those who paid attention. Those who dare. Because perhaps this is where our colors reveal themselves most clearly. Not in what we say about ourselves. But in what we SEE in others.
Why Love Is Not Enough
Life eventually teaches us to be more careful about whom we allow into our world. Not because we believe we are better than others. Or we wish to surround ourselves only with like-minded people. But because closeness requires the ability to SEE someone.
For someone to truly stand beside another person, it is not enough to love them. They must also have developed within themselves those colors of the soul that are capable of recognizing what stands before them. Because love, by itself, is not enough.
I can sincerely love someone and still not be good for them. I can want the very best for them and yet lack the maturity, presence, skills, and awareness required to keep love alive. The longevity of a relationship requires far more than feelings and a compatible spectrum. It requires capacity.
Once I came to know my own colors, I stopped seeking approval. I no longer look for rescue or admiration. I look for mutual recognition. I look for people who have traveled deeply enough within themselves to see all their colors. Only they have the capacity to see all that I am. Not so they can give something to me, but so they can enlighten the same thing within themselves.
Some people will see only my strength. Others will see only my tenderness. Some will see opportunity. Some will see a threat. Some will see only what they themselves are missing. And each of them will be right, but only within the limits of their own vision.
That is why I no longer try to explain my colors to those who live in a black-and-white world. Not because they are less valuable. But it is just as futile as explaining shades of red to someone who is color-blind.
Instead, I have learned to recognize those who have traveled far enough so they truly see the entire spectrum. With them, there is no convincing, no proving, no struggle to be understood. There is only recognition. The two people looking at one another and instantly knowing that they speak the same language of colors. And perhaps there is something else we rarely talk about.
The Luxury of Recognition
In the same way that I carefully choose whom I allow into my world, a man who has traveled deeply through himself begins to recognize how rare it is to meet a woman who truly sees him. Not because he needs her to complete him. No human being can give another human being wholeness. But there are people beside whom we can live in our own wholeness much more deeply. There are people beside whom the need for roles disappears. There is no proof of strength. No hiding of weakness. No need to be greater, smarter, more successful, or more important than we truly are. They connect in a space where each person can be seen in pure wholeness.
For a man who has come to know himself, one of the greatest luxuries is not a woman who will admire him. Nor a woman who will heal him. Nor one who will follow him. But a woman who can see him. Who recognizes his strength, but also sees his fears. Who recognizes his responsibility, but also sees his tiredness. Who does not love what he has acquired, but who he truly is. She who does not ask him to become something else. She allows him to be completely himself.
Then the relationship stops being a place where needs are exchanged and becomes a place of meeting; a place where mind, body, and soul live together. A place where two people do not try to fill each other’s emptiness, but share the richness of colors they have already found within themselves.
The same recognition that gives depth to partnership also gives depth to friendship.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest luxuries people can acquire in life. To be fully seen. And fully accepted. Without the need to pretend to be anything else. Because when people who have learned how to see meet one another, love stops being a search. It becomes home.
P.S.
Before I let this story continue on its own path, I want to greet all the people who were part of it.
I see you. And I love you exactly as you are. Each of you carries something exceptional within yourself, something that belongs only to you and makes this world richer. Thank you for everything we have shared, for all the conversations, experiences, encounters, all hugs, and lessons we have brought into each other’s lives.
You are welcome in my life, each of you in your own way. And please know that I welcome you with a warm embrace and look forward to everything that is yet to come.
The inspiration for this story came from a person I am only beginning to know. Precisely because, although we exchanged only a few words, we understood each other far more deeply than one might expect from two people who have only just met.
I dedicate this story to everyone who recognizes the luxury that comes with this kind of share. When we recognize ourselves in a person who has built a similar spectrum of soul colors through life, we, in a brief moment, see in each other far more than words could ever tell.