Have you ever read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince? On the very first page is a story that demonstrates how much our assumptions limit what we see. The following is extracted from the first page of the book:

Once when I was six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast. Here is a copy of the picture.

In the book it said: “Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing. Afterward they are no longer able to move, and they sleep during the six months of their digestion.”

In those days I thought a lot about jungle adventures, and eventually managed to make my first drawing, using a colored pencil. My drawing Number One looked like this:

I showed the grown-ups my masterpiece, and I asked them if my drawing scared them.

They answered, “Why be scared of a hat?”

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so the grownups could understand. They always need explanations. My drawing Number Two looked like this:

Only when the boy, now a pilot, met the Little Prince, did he find someone who looked at his first drawing with the same eyes. Once people open up their thinking, they increase their ability to see what is really there.

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