Fringe Vision

There are two ways to lead your life, one is to stay focused on what you are doing and have a tunneled vision with your definition of the world being “you” and “people connected to you”.   Do you actually notice things around and see what is happening? I am sure many people reading this would say what is wrong in this and would claim to notice everything.

My question here is : What is it that scientists, artists, winners do differently to achieve extra-ordinary success?

Again, some of you would claim yourself to be successful in your own way, agreed, but here I am talking of extra-ordinary success, something which is phenomenal, which changes the way people think and do things.

I am talking of the kind of work artists and scientists do.  Here is my take on it, these are people who are more alert to what is happening in the fringe of their visual field. They notice things which normal people don’t notice. Artists would notice them and paint the picture with details which surprises the viewers; photographers freeze moments which we just passed by without noticing. Poets find pain in what is happening around them and we just pass by.  True scientists would notice things in their peripheral vision, sometimes what was obviously seen, but was being missed by everybody,  is noticed by someone and science progresses.  History is full of such examples where the obvious was being missed, for example something like Newton’s discovery of gravity, and now we take it for granted.   Somehow, I feel, this is what medicine books also try to teach us. Notice the patient as a whole, then zero down on field of interest, and radiology is similar, take an overview, and then focus on pathology.   Good students notice things in the fringe and answer even the rare questions in exam and get more marks. Great physicians notice things which others missed and treat the patient in one brilliant moment.

Developing fringe vision is one art which I feel is being missed, probably for a simple reason, that it gets overwhelming  to notice everything and feel pain of everything, probably the extra curious and sensitive people  are more alert to the fringes and their work brings the fringe to the visual field of the mainstream.