Can't see the forrest for the trees... Please read on...?

Question

The inability to see the bigger picture or to see what is right in front of someone is often referred to as not being able to 'see the forest for the trees'. That is confining oneself or being restricted to noticing the minutia (small or insignificant things) of day-to-day life while being unable to notice the bigger or more important things.

"True" love, happiness, joy, wisdom, security of self, the list is endless. Having these things has for the longest time, many thousands of years, been considered to be some of the most important things to posses in life and also some of the most valuable. It has been said that "man does not live on food and water alone", and while the struggle for subsistence is difficult in the extreme within our society if someone has nothing or very little there will eventually be a need for human companionship and enlightenment, a need to feed the mind and soul as well as the body.

Why then is it that if everyone need these things, love, happiness, wisdom, etc. to give life meaning and purpose that many fall into the trap of living to work, of living to pay the bills, of living for the sake of living? Is there a base reason why or society prises money, little pieces of paper with numbers on them, over wisdom, over ‘the love of a lifetime’, over feeling happy and content at heart with life as it is?

Why is it that people can’t see the forest for the trees?

Please explain your answers.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Rather a tough question!

I believe we miss the bigger picture because of our lack of faith in the future. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Important are those that are stable and longstanding.. what remains valuable for the whole life is the most important. Importance, as opposed to urgent or expedient, therefore comes from future. Future by its very nature is uncertain. Therefore, we need to have faith (stronger than mere hope) to be able to devote our resources (physical as well as non-physical) now to reap a future result.

In modern times, the risk element is continuously increasing because of our selfish approach. A vicious cycle is in operation. Because we are getting more and more selfish and individualistic, the risks are increasing and because the risks are increasing, we devote more and more to selfish objectives in order to protect self as the first task. In this vicious cycle of higher and higher risk and selfishness, we are losing faith in future and becoming more and more short-term oriented. Technology is thus being directed towards compressing time and doing everything faster and faster. This in turn further tends us to quantity rather than quality.

To summarize, we are becoming short term and quantity oriented due to erosion in cherished social norms and values arising from the perception of higher risks or greater uncertainty of future. That makes us myopic and bereft of the capability to see the bigger picture.

I am not sure whether I have been able to explain well enough what is in my mind... it may also be because this question you have come up with is no easy one to answer in a very lucid manner. However, with your insightful intelligence, I believe you would understand what I am trying to say.

Answer 2

Patterns.

Humans think in patterns and our brains are trained to recognize patterns. When you see a new face in a crowd your shuffle through the faces of people you have known to get a close match. Then you can say, "Hey, that guy looks like so and so."

Numbers, the alphabet, words and so many other things are patterns and we devote a large part of school teaching those patterns to people.

The saying "Think outside of the box." Is an attempt to break away from the same old patterns.

When you hear of a new idea that seems so simple that you should have thought of it; the idea is a result of thinking beyond the same old patterns. For example we stripe the roads to direct traffic, we have used painted stripes for years and years and it works. It took a genius to create a little ceramic button that would not only help the stripe, but it would alert a driver if they strayed across the line without knowing it. It took another genius idea to create a ceramic button that could be easily placed on the road, fixed to the road, and last. The guy who created this gets a penny or so for every one of these buttons used on the road; at least until his patent runs out.

We fall into patterns because we are trained to, because it is easy to, and because it is a habit. Breaking that habit, breaking free of your forest requires a new idea, a new path; original thought.

Answer 3

Materialism and impatience. People still want the things you describe but they have a bit of a skewed view as to how to go about achieving them. They also want everything now and not later so that acquiring something now when they think they really "have to have it" is more important than the long term goal of security. Credit is extended all too easily so that the concept of delayed gratification is a foreign one and so many people fall victim of overextending themselves in debt.