Many great thinkers of time have understood the power of vision and the recognition that how we perceive the world and our situations is more a function of of our mind and intellect than that it is merely what is seen by the eyes. Just as our eyes can only see a tiny fraction of the light spectrum; so too our mind and intellect is limited in its scope of perception and cognition as a result of the distortion created by emotions and thoughts .
Ralph Waldo Emerson has often referenced vision and the eyes in his introspective writing
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. . . . ” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.” ― Dorothea Lange
Empathy begins with understanding life from another person's perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It's all through our own individual prisms.