Chalres Bukowski: I Met a Genius Today
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
as he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it’s not pretty
it was the first time I’d
realized
that.
As humans, we are conditioned to think in a certain way – certain things are pretty, certain things are ugly just because we’ve been taught they are. The speaker has always seen the coast line and the ocean as a beautiful thing, however, once somebody breaks the mold and says that it’s not so great, the author sees the landscape for what it truly is. Remarkably, the “teacher” a six-year-old; this makes sense because children are more likely to question ways of thinking and develop their own points of view before society can mold them as they get older. Although we have been taught to “see” a certain way, it is not exactly what we “see.” The big qustion is whether or not we experience the world through the eyes that have been shaped by our environment or do we watch as individuals.
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