In John Lloyd's Ted Talk about invisibility, I was astonished when I learned that the most important things in life are invisible. For example, you can't see time. No one can see the future or the past, only a memory of the past. Without time how would you know when a certain event will happen or did happen? Another thing John Lloyd claims is that we can't see light. When it's dark, if a person shines a light right into your eyes, you cannot see the light beam but only what it hits. Furthermore, we can't see gas. We discovered this phenomenon around the 1600's and teach it in our schools today. The things we can't see we can't understand. We can see stars and other planets but we cannot see what draws them together or what separates them. So how can we understand that? There is a hundred billion Galaxy's and we could only see five. Another thing we "can't see is the human genome" where scientists originally thought that humans have over one hundred thousand genes but since then dropped to just over 20,000 genes. Rice has 38,000 genes which is more then our complicated system (the human body) has. How is this possible if we can think, vocalize, and move whereas rice can't?
In my Literature class we are reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and in this novel there is an invisible man. His name is Boo Radley. He is invisible in the sense that he stays isolated from the outside world. No one knows what he does or even what he looks like. Rumors are constantly spreading about Boo. Rumors that are negative. Why do people start rumors about Boo if they hardly know anything about him? Is it because he's housebound or is it because he is not the ordinary, average person?
Invisibility is all around us. You may not notice because you are driving or on your laptop, but generally the poor, homeless, and needy are invisible. People don't want to recognize the homeless people they see on the sidewalks begging for food. They simply just look the other way or pretend not to hear their cry for help.
The biggest thing that is invisible to us is what we don't know.