Cock Your Head

There was a ding, the elevator door opened. A woman stepped out, followed by a small boy of maybe three or four years old. The boy was speaking with excitement, “Mom, Mom, it’s a vee!” to which his mother replied, “No, it’s an el.” I could still hear him protest that it was a vee and his mother firmly assert that it was an el on their way out of the building.

The overheard conversation intrigued me, and when inside the elevator pressing on the button to my floor I suddenly understood what the boy and his mother had talked about. On the control panel there was a button with the letter L for Lobby, and the boy must have cocked his head to see a V instead.

Smart little fellow, I thought and couldn’t suppress a grin. Too bad his mother didn’t see it that way, but that’s exactly how a virgin mind was stripped of its originality and molded into seeing things the way everyone else did. Too bad we reduce ourselves to a bunch of horses with blinkers.

How about this for a change. When you get stuck or simply get bored, just cock your head when looking at whatever interests you. Like that boy, you might see a V instead of an L, and that might give you a whole new set of eyes to see the world with.