#5 In isolation: time to see with eyes to see

With everyone in isolation, one of the usual questions in many homes must now be: What are we going to see today? And the decision is not easy among so many screens to choose from: on the mobile phone, on the internet, on Netflix or on television. In the bedroom, in the living room or on a little corner of the sofa. And the question is important: because what we see is what we live - with this lack that the world outside makes us. So you really have to ask: What are we going to see today?

It may be useful to consider the following four proposals. The first is obvious and necessarily the screen. How happy we are to have so many offers and so much choice. We lack neither information nor entertainment. So we can manage well what does us good. It is certainly not healthy to see the latest figures and the dramas of the crisis n-times a day. You have to turn it off. It seems that old movies and series already watched are a good remedy. Insofar as they do not surprise us, they comfort us. Reviewing what we already know allows us to feel less lost, more secure. Or the piece we always wanted to know better, the documentary that reminds us of the richness of history or nature. Diving into the screen can have a purifying effect and now is the time to enjoy this escapism. Maybe it is more the time of memory and the classics than the thriller. But whatever the taste: as long as they do well and let us sleep, screens are welcome and our faithful companions in these times without the friends of skin and bone.

But there is much more to see than on the screens. Whatever the view, all the windows open to the world. Have you seen the blue of the sky today with the little clouds? The rubber tree has grown so much that it almost enters the neighbour's house from the front. And next door, the abandoned yard: with a stubborn lemon tree. The dog, barking on the other side, must have died or gone with the owner to his hometown.(Will it be allowed at this time?) You can't hear it.  But you can hear the ambulances every now and then a pot put on the stove with a little more strength. Or is it violence? Some voices as if they came from off. And then in the afternoon you have to move to the other side of the house - the sun always comes around and so do we. The rain leaves marks on the window I will take out at some point. But if it is too warm, I will open the window and I will not see the stains anymore.

There is a lot to see through the window. And anyone lucky enough not to be alone at home still has a lot more. Sit down together as close as the house allows: and see the other. To feel the presence. To look. To really see. To mix past and future, what we share and what separates us. To know how to see the other in us. Us in each other. Maybe we can even keep quiet. We don't even want to imagine that we didn't see our own vis-à-vis. It is not an adventure. It is not a time of adventure. We do not want to leave each other. And I will say a kind word to you tomorrow. To make up for it.

The peak of this seeing exercise is when we close our eyes. When we enter the space from which memories and tears come. And who knows, the visions. Being present. When we see what nobody sees. It is in front of us. Full of courage. Held still to make the move later.

True freedom is beyond the consumption of more and more news, information, numbers or images. To watch, to see, to look at. The vision, the view, the sight. So many words between seeing and looking. True freedom is where what touches us happens. And where we respond vividly. We will see.

Peter Hanenberg, Director of the Centre for Communication and Culture Studies (CECC) and coordinator of the research group "Cognition and Translatability