#alexithymia

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FIELD OBSERVATION: PIGEONS

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Let me tell you about pigeons. Do you know why they nod their heads so comically when they walk? I’m no ornithologist, but I’ve got a theory. It’s not the main one, nor the only one — just my own, off the top of my head. And I think I’m right.

Let’s start with the fact that a pigeon can see almost everything — behind, in front and to the sides, all at the same time. With eyes on either side, its field of vision is almost circular. The world is one continuous panorama with no centre. Too much information, too few points of reference. It’s as if you’re walking, yet it’s as if you’re standing still – the view doesn’t change.

And this is where it gets really interesting. When a pigeon walks, it stretches its head forward and fixes its gaze on a single detail: a mark on the tarmac, the shadow of a bench, a cigarette butt. The view narrows down to that single point of reference. If the object is getting closer, you’re moving towards it. If it moves away, you move away from it. So, by latching onto something stationary, it finally realises where its own feet are taking it. It’s like focusing a camera: to understand who’s the main subject in the frame, you need to narrow the depth of field. Otherwise, everything else is just the background. And you get lost in it.

That’s why pigeons only nod their heads when they’re walking. When they’re standing still, they tilt their heads from side to side, taking in what’s going on. Have you noticed? When you walk past, a pigeon doesn’t fly off straight away. It freezes, tilts its head—up, then to the side—stretches its neck out, then tucks it in. It isn’t looking at you. It’s calculating its trajectory. It looks with one eye, picks up sounds, and works out: from which direction the danger is coming and where to fly. It doesn’t panic — it’s mapping out the space. It’s not fear. It’s calculation. That’s how a system works that has no room for error.

I’m no scientist, of course. But when I’d worked all this out and then went to check it, it turned out that science says exactly the same thing. Parallax, retention phase, image stabilisation… And the essence is simple: the pigeon nods to work out where it’s going.

And here’s what I think now. We humans do the same. When we don’t know where to go next, we freeze and start tilting our heads. We look at the floor beneath our feet, at the wall in front of us, into someone’s eyes. We search for something still to push off from and finally work out which way to go.

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Metaphor One: Blind Pull-Ups

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Imagine this: consciousness is the pigeon’s body—heavy, clumsy, carrying us forward by the inertia of the days. And attention, the spirit—is the head, which must stay ahead of the body, pausing at a single point so as not to lose its way.

When the world turns into a vast, centreless panorama — when all options are equal, all advisors are shouting, all paths are open — a sense of vertigo sets in. You walk, but you don’t know where you’re going. The view doesn’t change. It is the horror of pure, directionless movement.

And what does the pigeon do? It thrusts its head forward. Without consulting its body. It fixes its gaze on a single point on the tarmac — a crumb of bread, a crack — and commands itself: ‘This is north. This is meaning. I’m holding on.’ Whilst the body jerks, whilst life strains to catch up with that point — it goes blind. The jolt is a leap of faith. You see nothing but what you’ve already clung to. At that moment, you could crash. But without it — eternal stagnation.

So it is with a person: when it all becomes too much — choose one unshakeable love, one line from a book, one word — and hold on to it until the rest of the world catches up. Blindly. Fiercely. Otherwise, the parallax of life will not come together.

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Metaphor Two: The Binocular Wisdom of Tilt

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But you cannot hold on forever. Sooner or later you come to a halt, and the second part of navigation begins. Having eyes on both sides is the curse of an eternal dilemma. You see a threat on both the left and the right, but you do not know how far away it is. To gauge the distance, a sacrifice is required: closing one eye. To tilt your head is to turn away from half the world in order to gauge the distance to the other half. It is a moment of extreme vulnerability and supreme precision. The pigeon ceases to see ‘everything at once’ in order to see ‘one thing, but in three dimensions’. It transforms the flat film of your approach into stereoscopic reality.

This is the essence of human reflection. We freeze and tilt our heads towards our shoulders as we look at a problem. We temporarily switch off our peripheral vision, block out the background, and sacrifice breadth of view for the sake of depth. We look at fear first with the left eye of emotion, then with the right eye of logic. And from these two flat images, depth is born.

The pigeon does not fly away immediately, not because it is brave, but because it knows that to flee without gauging the distance would be suicide. It freezes, tilts its head, and calculates. And it takes flight at precisely the moment when the distance to the sole of your boot becomes critical. A second later, and it would be death. A second too early — a pointless waste of energy. A dance with chaos on the brink of a foul.

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Metaphor Three: The Saccadic God

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There is a term in science that sounds like a prayer: saccades. These are tiny twitches of the eyes. Without them, we would go blind. The image on the retina fades unless it is refreshed by these twitches. We see only because our eyes are constantly dancing.

A pigeon twitches its head. We twitch our thoughts. When we ‘tilt our heads’ in a metaphorical sense, we perform a saccade of the spirit. We make a micro-shift in our perspective so that the image of the world, of ourselves, of our loved one, does not fade or vanish from our perception. If we stop twitching, stop asking questions from a new angle, stop ‘scratching our gaze’ against the rough edges of existence — we will cease to see. The object will remain, but it will fade into background noise.

We are doomed to this vibration. To a constant tilt of the head. To constant questioning. We cannot simply know — we must rediscover everything anew each time, lest we go blind.

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Final point: The Fixed Star

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The dove nods because the ground beneath it is shifting. We nod because meaning is fluid. Both seek something immovable, so as not to dissolve into a panorama without a centre.

And if it ever seems to you that you are standing still, foolishly tilting your head whilst the world rushes past — remember: at that moment, you are not waiting. You are mapping the abyss. You are calculating the trajectory of fate as it bears down on you like a wall. And as soon as the distance is measured, as soon as the baseline is found — you will take a step.

Or take flight.

I tried to look through my drafts to see if I had any words of value in there to post, only to just end up scrolling through 31 extremely vague vents

Why are words so challenging ughhhh i have so much I wanna say but i always just find a way to seem like I'm complaining when I try to string them into sentences, even if that was not my original intention

Difficulty expressing emotions & feelings to others.

Difficulty recognising others emotions & feelings.

Difficulty differentiating between physical & emotional sensations.

Between words inked on paper milled from the trees once strong in the earth. They hide from me like the words not written between the lines or the lines removed from the final print.

They hide from me in ways others can read plan as a childs story book. I cannot name them like a child names is favourite toy yet i feel them as deep as one feels the love between romeo and julliet from a tale written from life times ago.

Yet i write these words that invoke these feelings among many when i cannot give them a simple name. For what if i feel 'bob' or 'Jenny' not anguish or ecstasy.