Today I’m talking about lenses. Not glass lenses, but the lens of the mind, the brain, the eyes through which something is perceived.
Most of you reading this likely think of me as a photographer when you think about me at all. That is your lens for the topic of me. Maybe you know some other things about me but the most public face I have had for a lot of years has been a light painting photographer. Before that, I was successful at being an alt-model photographer, and before that an action sports photographer.
These are things I put a lot of effort into. These are things I shared with the world about myself. These are also things that, through my own self-lens, are a small fraction of my whole.
When I think of myself the very first thing that comes to me is being a software engineer. I spend more time in my life doing that than anything else. I design databases, I perform needs analysis, I develop specifications. I do the implementation of web database and mobile applications. I’m good at it and I enjoy it. This pays my bills and this is the lens through which I see myself the most. I have worked with some of you and this might be the lens you see me through as well. In my reality, this is a big deal to me.
Some of you think of me as a hockey player, having played up to 16 seasons with me. For some of you, your me-lens portrays me as a hockey fan. I met some of you over a pool table and when you think of me that’s the first thing that comes to mind. For others it’s poker. Shibari? Darkwave music producer? Both are a little stale in my life but that’s still where some of you would place me.
I have a motorcycle and have ridden with many of you but I don’t suspect that anybody thinks of me primarily through a motorcycle lens. That’s a little interesting to me because that’s definitely core to some fun or important memories, but it seems much more peripheral than the other topics above. And I might be wrong…. maybe the label on your lens for me really does say “motorcycle”.
Today I had lunch with my high school best friend, his wife, and their three kids. Afterward, we traded a couple messages and he shared how excited he was for his kids to meet “the legend”. The legend? Something like that never crossed my mind, much less the fact that his kids had me in their minds at all. But for years this has been the case in the same way that sometimes I tell tales of high school and he comes up. Today I met them as I am today, rolling up on my Ducati, wearing a white shirt with an artistic skull pattern on it, a helmet, actually having hair. For the kids this might be the only time in their lives they will meet me and forever their lens for me will be the sum of the previous tales and this one encounter, etched in their minds.
20 years ago when we were hanging out he and most people viewed me through the lens of being a Christian, and a freestyle biker/roller blader. I left those behind a long time ago, effectively breaking that lens for myself, but there are still people reading this who met me in that context and that is part of their lens for me. It’s part of what made me who I am but is not part of my current self-image, my present, nor my future. Just like telescopes capture starlight that was generated millions of years ago, so too do these types of lenses capture moments in time, almost always rooted in the past, sometimes in the present, and never yet in the future.
All of these lenses are true, in their own ways. None of these lenses are complete, not even the one I see myself with. I am all of those experiences that people remember. I am more. I am a writer, a reader, a sci-fi movie enthusiast, a comic book reader, a dog owner, a lover, and a caretaker. I am a pool player, a former hockey player, a hockey fan, a scientist, a philosopher, and a motorcycle rider who also plays with ropes and lights and cameras. I am all those things and yet in any given moment I am simply just present. I have an affinity for Zen Buddhist concepts, but I’m also far from being a Zen Buddhist. I’m a psychonaut, exploring creativity, spirituality, and philosophical truths. This is part of some of your lenses for me, this may not be part of your lens for me at all..
I am all these things yet none of these things are me, save for a fractional part.
Specific details notwithstanding, all of these things are true for you as well. You might be the gal from the coffee shop, and people who know you through that lens don’t know about or understand your love of anime. Maybe you work as a legal assistant and nobody there knows how you fill your nights or weekends, or that you have multiple degrees or speak seven languages. And the people that know that you speak seven languages don’t know you work as a legal assistant.
With your own details, you are all of these things, yet none of these things make up more than a part of you.
The people we let get close to us, they see us through more lenses. Maybe it’s more accurate to say they see more through their particular lens. You wouldn’t really see me as Dan the hockey player and then additionally as Dan the photographer, but more as a hockey player who also does photography. To someone with that perspective, one lens sees those aspects simultaneously. Everyone who knows us has their own perspective, their own lens, for us and for every other person or thing. The story of who we are in the eyes and mind of another, this will never match our story. This will also never match the story that another person has for us. Some parts will line up, however each person has their own lens and experiences that shape how they see another person.
Finally, we don’t even fully see ourselves through all possible, yet accurate or relevant, lenses. Today I was reminded that there is a lens upon me as a Christian. That lens is old, that reality is no longer part of my own lens anymore, but truly that is a part of me and the truth of my history includes that. Somebody somewhere might remember something that I said that I personally forgot years ago. That might be their only memory of me, my foothold in their existence, and yet it doesn’t even exist for me anymore. Freestyle biking and blading? Same thing. Thankfully this is true for many other aspects of my past, aspects I have moved on from. I’m no longer a jealous or insecure person, yet that’s how some from long ago would remember me. Just because I put down that lens doesn’t mean the effects are gone or that others don’t still carry that view of me.
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on the power of stories. The same story viewed through a different lens is actually a different story. We are certainly more than however we see ourselves through our primary lens, and other people are vastly more than the sliver of them we see through the lens we cast upon them. Give people a chance, if it seems right to you. Each of us has so much more to us, so much more to offer than other people know through the cursory glance of a limited lens.