More Than Meets the Eye

It’s frequently assumed that looking and seeing have the same meaning. In fact, the difference between them is crucial. To look means essentially to perceive in three dimensions and to confirm and name what confronts our vision. Its ultimate benefit is to permit us to identify by name the world around us. It focuses on exteriors — on what presents itself to the eye.

Seeing, on the other hand, has multiple dimensions. Looking is but the first step. This is followed by associations, insights and comparisons. Assume, for the moment, that looking is like viewing a television screen, which presents the viewer with a two-dimensional image of a three-dimensional world. Since looking at a television screen consumes the attention span of millions on a daily basis, this means that millions are looking at what the cameraman considers important (“newsworthy”). They are viewing a replica of the world bound by sponsor-purchased time-segments and deadlines edited to focus on what the managers of a commercial medium choose. Viewers who become mesmerized by a medium in this way often let the medium do the “seeing” and thinking for them. Since persons are more than viewers, it can be said with or without qualification that a person is the ultimate loser when he reduces himself to the status of a viewer or when he similarly “looks” at the world that way. He has not yet become a seer.

Seeing begins where looking ends. The poet William Blake suggested as much when he wrote: “We are led to believe a lie/When we see not through the eye.” Using this as the difference between looking and seeing, I will cite three individuals whose lives and achievements were there for the looking. But the mere looking did not seem to do them justice until we learned to see what lay beneath the surface.

The first example is Charles Lindbergh. Television did not exist in 1927 when he flew over the Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to Le Bourget airport in Paris. There still exist a few minutes of film of his take-off, when he barely cleared some telephone wire in the rain at the end of the runway. And, of course, there are film snippets of his arrival in Paris, but it’s only when we read and look imaginatively deeper into the flight that we see — really see — what was unforgettable.

Lindbergh’s plane (The Spirit of St. Louis) remains on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington. It is a single cockpit monoplane that’s 27 feet long. The windshield was removed to allow for additional fuel space needed for the 45o gallons required for the 3,610 mile flight. At an average speed of 120 to 130 miles per hour, the time of the flight itself was 30 hours and 30 minutes.

Forward vision was restricted. Because of the absence of a windshield, Lindbergh had to use a periscope or lean out of a side window to see ahead. Such restrictions and difficulties would appear formidable enough in themselves, but there was an additional hardship that Lindbergh overcame that defies belief. Prior to take-off, Lindbergh had been totally involved with preparations that he alone oversaw and verified. The result was that at the time of take-off, Lindbergh had not slept for almost 24 hours. He then stayed awake for 30 hours and 30 minutes until he landed. Additional interviews and receptions prevented his sleep once he landed, before he finally could sleep after 60 hours awake. The sleeplessness is the most remarkable part of this saga since it happened while he was flying through sleet by day and night over the North Atlantic. We all know that the body demands sleep, but on May 21, 1927, one man defied nature to stay competently awake for 24 pre-flight hours plus 30 and a half hours in the air in a cramped space that allowed only minimal movement. These details alone compel me to see Lindbergh forever in those terms.

My second example of what it means to see and not simply look at someone involves the Olympic runner, Wilma Rudolph. Biographically speaking, Wilma Rudolph’s life until she was 12 was not one that would seem to have gold Olympic medals in its future. One of 22 children, she was stricken with polio, as well as scarlet fever and pneumonia, and was confined to a wheelchair until she was 12.

She struggled to walk year by year, and gradually with the help of her mother strengthened her muscles so she could run. In fact, she ran so well that she qualified for the Olympics when she was 16 and won a bronze medal in track. In 1960, she competed in the 1oo, 200 and 4 x 100 track events and won gold in all three, setting a record by running the 100 in 11 seconds.

As a result of her performance at the Olympics, Wilma Rudolph became famous overnight. Rather than batten on her fame, she returned to Tennessee, married and became a teacher of underprivileged children until her death in 1994. Her altruism together with her achievements as a record-setting runner certainly set her apart, but what further makes her unforgettable as a runner is how she ran. Here was a woman of 20 when she was named Athlete of the Year (among other honors). She stood an inch below six feet and weighed 130 pounds. She was not known for a fast start, but once she reached her full stride, she was unbeatable. The videos of her gold medal wins capture the rhythm of her long-legged strides flawlessly. Even when she crossed the finish line, she was still running at full speed. Knowing that she was a girl who was crippled until she became a teen makes her Olympic victories immortal. Every time I see her videos on Y0uTube, I truly see Wilma Rudolph. Knowing what I have synopsized here of her life, you will understand what seeing means when you see them as well. The videos reveal the poetry of the female form in perfect motion.

A final person I would name who was truly seen during his life and has remained so ever since is Roberto Clemente, the All-Star right fielder of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I know the attention that Clemente received in Pittsburgh because I saw him play many times at Forbes Field. I saw his almost casual catches of bloopers and his leaping catches of line drives. Since many runners of opposing teams with a runner on third tried to score on a fly ball hit to right field, I saw them dash for home after the catch and slide into a tag. Clemente’s throws to home from deep right or right center would come on a line without a bounce, and few were the runners who could beat such a throw to the waiting catcher. As a right-handed batter, Clemente had the unorthodox habit of hitting with power while balanced on his left rather than his right foot. On one occasion, he hit a line drive with such force that the pitcher (Bob Gibson) could not evade or field it, and it broke a bone in his leg.

Even when he greeted his fans — usually hero-worshipping boys in Clemente T-shirts — he wore a shirt and tie (always a shirt and tie). On the field he rarely, if ever, called attention to himself. When he collected his 3,000th hit, he stopped at second base, tipped his cap once, and simply waited for play to resume.

Following the World Series victory in 1971, he flew home to Puerto Rico. His native fans thronged the airport. Reporters held up microphones for him to speak, but he deferred until he called his mother and father and thanked them quietly in Spanish.

Weeks later, he rented a private plane, packed it with food, clothes and medical provisions, and prepared to fly to Managua, Nicaragua, to relieve hurricane victims there.

The plane crashed in the Caribbean shortly after take-off.

I happened to be in Mexico City at that time and I left the hotel to buy a newspaper to read about the crash. The atmosphere in the hotel seemed almost funereal, and the streets were desolate. When I reached the newsstand, the attendant looked at me sadly and said quietly, “No se encontro.” He was telling me in the shortest but most solemn way possible that Clemente’s body had not been recovered. The tone of his voice conveyed the sense of loss that Latin Americans as a whole must have felt, particularly Latin American baseball players, since it was Clemente who had opened the door for them into the Major Leagues. The flight to Managua certainly could have been made without him. His wife had even urged him not to go, but he thought that his presence would give the need for help more notice. It was not just a famous right-fielder who was saying this. It was an adult human being who felt other people’s suffering as his own. That made everyone see Clemente as a man as well as a baseball player.

His baseball accomplishments are duly recognized at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but there is a special and additional distinction. There are statues of two former players known for their altruism. One is Lou Gehrig. The other is Roberto Clemente.