Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. 'Nothing in particular,' she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me.
-Helen Keller, Three Days to See (1933)
NB: Helen Keller was deaf-blind.
Today, for the second time, while I was running, I saw a young boy "walking" a little dog in the forest. That is, he was standing in one spot indifferently holding the dog's short leash and playing some type of handheld videogame while the dog basically walked on the spot, sniffing around to kill time.
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