At our last choir concert, the September one, I learned something strange about noticing. I’d never sung in a choir before, so I went all out—found a tailor, asked for something simple, respectful, choir-like. The result? A long, boxy, shapeless dress that made me look like I’d stepped straight out of an old hymn book. On the concert day, I noticed everyone else’s dresses—how beautiful, flattering, and well-fitted they were—and suddenly mine looked even worse. I couldn’t stop comparing. I was embarrassed, angry with myself, and when it was all over, I threw that dress away.
That dress taught me something I didn’t realize then: we notice what touches our ego. The things that threaten it, flatter it, or put it in question. Our attention sharpens around whatever feels advantageous or disadvantageous to our sense of self, our social standing, or our survival. I didn’t see beauty that night—I saw what I wasn’t.
It’s not just about clothes, though. It’s the same reason we notice when someone gets more praise than we do, or when we’re left out of a conversation, or when someone challenges a belief that shapes our identity. Our minds filter reality through what protects or wounds our image of ourselves.
And even that isn’t the full story. What we’re capable of noticing is also limited by the language and concepts we’ve been taught. We don’t just see what’s there; we see what we’ve learned to name. That’s why there are feelings in Japanese, like yūgen, that we can’t quite translate into English—it describes a quiet, mysterious kind of beauty that we can only understand if we let our minds open to it. Once you have a word for something, it becomes real in your awareness.
Sometimes I think back to that ugly choir dress and laugh. It wounded my pride, yes, but it also cracked something open. It showed me that noticing isn’t neutral. It’s shaped by our ego, our culture, and the words we’ve been given to make sense of the world. And the moment you start noticing for yourself—beyond pride, beyond fear, beyond borrowed words—you begin to actually see.