Blind Spot

The Clone Stamp Tool fills in your blind spotsI have a blind spot in the center of my vision. So do you, though you’ve probably never noticed. Our brain fills in the information, like the Clone Stamp tool in Adobe Photoshop. This bugs me a lot. Why? Because it means that everything I see is partly imaginary. Keep that in mind next time you try to be an impartial observer. You may try to be unbiased, but there will always be a part of your world that’s simply made up by your unconscious mind.

Many people try to get around this by being more logical and more objective. But you can’t do that. You can’t turn off that subjective part of your brain and you’d be stupid to try. There is a lot of intelligence underlying your subjective experience, and this intelligence is as important as the more logical, objective part of your psyche. Intuition is every bit as important as rationality, and both are important in every decision you make.

The blind spot in our eye can teach us a lot about the world. After all, blind spots don’t just exist on our retinas. They exist in our mind. We turn away from things we don’t like, and it’s only when we shift our view, both literally and metaphorically, that we can see the way things really are.

Steve Lovelace

Steve Lovelace is a writer and graphic artist. After graduating Michigan State University in 2004, he taught Spanish in Samoa before moving to Dallas, Texas. He blogs regularly at http://steve-lovelace.com.

You may also like...

3 Responses

  1. December 16, 2013

    […] favorite features on Cracked include the Photoplasty contests, where Cracked readers can submit Photoshopped monstrosities based on themes such as “What The World Would Look Like If The Other Side Won […]

  2. February 12, 2014

    […] artist, I felt it was my duty to contribute something to the movement. So instead of using my Photoshop skills to make another silly picture, I made one that shows my support for our gay and lesbian […]

  3. March 13, 2014

    […] it didn’t have LOGO. Unlike BASIC, LOGO was designed for graphics. Long before I got to use Photoshop, or even MS Paint, I used LOGO to draw on the computer screen. There was this little triangle, […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.