Heroes Not Zombies

Isn’t this a great door?

Rather than having a tiny peephole to secretly look out through, this person has carved a heart. Sure, some peepholes have lenses in them which give you a wider angle range of view, but the clue to their limitation is in their name – they are just a little hole which allows you to have a “peep”. The view is limited, partial, incomplete. Instead of that, this person has a larger, big-hearted view of the world.

I don’t know how this works in practice, and it may be that there was a secondary door behind this one (otherwise it’d let in quite a draft!) but it’s interesting to me that a peephole is normally known as a security device, something put there because of fear, but this open heart says something entirely different.

This is one of my favourite passages from “The Little Prince” –

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

What can we do to create a world where more people can engage with an open heart, rather than through the debilitating lens of fear?

What would the world look like if we looked at it with the heart more than with the eye? If we gave more weight to the invisible? After all, the invisible includes the Self, subjectivity, consciousness, feelings, love, care, relationships and attention. None of those can be seen with the eye, or measured and presented statistically. None of those have easily defined borders or limits.

What would life feel like when lived with a more open heart?

Can love flow through a closed heart and a hardened mind?

I reckon it’s worth some consideration.