Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. – Mark Twain

Pondering on the LRT yesterday, I thought of some Malay proverbs and sayings connecting our intelligence with various parts of our bodies. Two in particular were “Hanya jauhari mengenal manikam” and “Jauh perjalanan, luas pemandangan”. Both refer to a person’s sight as the yardstick for knowledge. This is not limited to the Malay culture, often we tout a charismatic leader as ‘visionary’ and ‘far-sighted’. Probably there are equivalent instances in the Chinese and Indian sayings as well. Any takers out there?

Conversely, we say that those who are the opposite of being knowledgable are blind, or in the dark. “Can’t you SEE the potential of this project?!”, you might say to your boss, as he rejects your proposal. The ability to visualise something that is intangible seems to be a common trait of geniuses. Think Einstein, with his thought-experiments that equated gravity on earth with the sensation of travelling away in space in a rocket. This was before any rockets were invented and flown into space.

The eyes of your mind paints its own picture, and perhaps that is why the sight is so valued, your eyes are right next to your most important organ, the brain. This was not always the case, though. In Classical Greece and Rome, initially it was the heart, rather than the brain, that was considered to be the seat of mental processes, including intellectual functions like thinking, memory and imagination. And perhaps they were not too far off, as we also have sayings relating to the heart as a place of knowledge, such as “mengisi ilmu di dada“.

There are also Qur’anic verses referring to sights and senses as a source of knowledge,“…And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding…” (Sura 32:9). But the heart is also also highlighted as the criterion for faith (a type of ‘sight’, in itself?).

Thank you for the birthday wishes. Pray for my eyes and and my heart, they don’t see so well nowadays.

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