I came out of the womb squinting and I’ve never stopped since. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had the worst eyesight, but as a child I thought it was normal. I didn’t realize some people were able to read signs three feet away without squinting, or recognize someone from across the street. Once I came to this uncomfortable realization, having blurry vision quickly taught me to always look down at the ground when I walked to avoid embarrassing situations. For example, if I saw someone coming towards me at the end of the school hallway, I’d look down as I walked towards them. Once I felt we were close enough to one another, I’d look up and fake a surprised, “Oh hey, I didn’t see you there!” I did this to protect myself in case it was someone I knew. I mean, I literally couldn’t see them, and I didn’t want them to think I was rude for not smiling or making eye contact with them sooner.
This habit was ingrained in me for so long that even once I started wearing glasses and contacts, I would still habitually look at the ground whenever I was walking alone to avoid making accidental eye contact with anyone. Looking up at the world was now far clearer and a lot less scary, but self-preserving habits are hard to break. I mean, I had spent most of my life avoiding looking up for fear that I would be perceived as rude! But in Western culture especially, eye contact shows you’re polite. Eye contact with a handshake establishes confidence. Eye contact is a way of connecting with someone and showing them that you care about what they have to say. But can’t I look at the ground and still be a good listener? Can’t I still look at the ground and be a confident person if I feel like I can protect myself better? Can looking down ever be seen as a positive?
On Friday the 13th, you might look down to avoid “stepping on cracks that will break your mother’s back.” On any day, you might look down when walking on a cobblestone street to avoid tripping over uneven bricks that could either send you flying or just cause you momentary (but extreme) unpleasantness. That feeling when your heart drops for a second? Ugh.
Sometimes, I look down while walking on the street to avoid making eye contact with people who might say something rude or objectify. When you look down, you’re also less likely to trip over the aforementioned uneven sidewalks, as well sidestep scurrying rats—it’s New York after all. At my workplace, the majority of the population are little children, and it would frankly just be dangerous not to look down when you work in a place where most of the inhabitants are under three feet tall. Tripping over kids is no joke (for you or for them)!
I look down when heading down subway steps—I say heading because I don’t think I have ever walked nor run down subway steps, it’s always somewhere in between, but it’s not a jog. A skip? It’s important to look down when skipping down subway steps as there could be rain puddles, or spilled food, or a person sitting there. To slip, trip, or tumble down subway steps scares me in a way I can’t really explain. Maybe looking down is all about avoiding fears, or confronting the idea of them. It probably goes both ways, depending on the day.
It’s good to look down every once in a while to check your fly. Or when you’re wearing too-long pants and looking down to check if they’re skimming the sidewalk, accidentally getting dyed black. Going hiking and looking down to keep your balance as you step through uneven rocky terrain. Looking down off the edge of a cliff to scare yourself into thinking that any second now, you could plummet to your certain death. Looking down at your cousin’s newborn baby in your arms, taking in every new eyelash, twitching finger, and tiny perfect toes.
Strawberry picking. Tying your shoes. Forward folds in yoga. Stomping on a cockroach that most CERTAINLY does not belong in your kitchen. I can think of a multitude of ways that looking down is not only instinctual, but necessary. But what if I don’t have to—I just want to? Looking back at pre-teen me who consistently looked down to minimize the squinting she had to do so much of, I probably just should have gotten glasses way sooner. Like, straight out of the womb sooner. Either way, the ingrained need to please and never be seen as rude would still have been there. But I never would have noticed the flowers growing between the cracks in the sidewalk. I may not have spotted the rocks the neighborhood kids painted in rainbow colors to “make people happy.” And at this point, I finally know that it doesn’t always matter how other people perceive you—I’ll look at the world however I want to.