The Mind's Magnifying Glass

The brain, a seat of consciousness and intellect can be considered to be the world's greatest

magnifying glass. The reason is simple.

Have you ever looked out of the window and just stared? You can have a billion things to do, but you can gaze without reason into the vast landscapes, or in our case, the vast cityscapes. No one ever contemplates why. Why do we sit in silence under the orange sunset? Why do we glimpse continuously at the green valleys and mountains? Why do we stare at the puffy white clouds soaring high in the clean blue sky? Why, when we do look at these sights, does the tick of the clock go silent? Why do we forget the un-staticness of time, when we gape into the depths of nature? Perhaps, it is

because in these moments, the magnifying glass in our brain falters and blurs. It is in these moments we realize how insignificant our problems and lives are. It is in these moments we truly find 'time to sit and stare' at the sheer vastness, grandness, and timelessness of the world around us, of nature itself.

'What is man to rocks and mountains' says Jane Austen in 'Pride and Prejudice'. It is often in our daily lives, that we seem to forget everything else. We take the world and its continuous march forward for granted and magnify our own problems, actions, issues, and our own experience so much so, that it becomes our whole existence- our whole life. And in the times of a faceoff with nature - its beauty and vastness, we seem to forget our problems, forget, in some sense, our strong sense of individuality.

However the above is in no way a criticism of human nature, it is rather the celebration of nature which manifests in this unique form, the unique form of life. Perhaps this magnifying power we possess, and the 'we' refers to all life, from the tiger that does not see the beauty in its forest, to the fish that does not notice the depth of its own ocean and the 'Wild Geese' that do not perceive the beauty in the sunset. Maybe, this magnifying power, this power to put aside everything, including the whole wide world that makes you feel so insignificant, and focus only on your own life and problems, allowing you to find beauty in your individual self, is not just the hallmark of human nature, but of life itself.

-Rishit Shah