A bee looks in wonder at the possibilities a rose garden offers: flowers and the nectar that, once gathered, enters the collaborative circuit of honey production. Living among human beings and, above all, working with them calls for that bee’s eye. From the start, in the first glances, in the first conversations, possibilities and alternatives appear. The focus is only one: the possibilities.

Yet we live in a world where fly’s eyes proliferate. Though natural for the fly, a focus on dung represents, for humans, a destructive pattern. That gaze meticulously selects the constructive aspects only to discard them, emphasizing destruction and moral and human decay. With a contaminated bias, an obsession with defects, perversions and ruins sets in.

At this moment, I express solidarity with the fly, apologizing for the indelicate use of its survival strategy as a metaphor. Reparation made, we go on, taking the opportunity to remind the reader that the same applies to the bee: it is just an (excellent) metaphor.

Whoever adopts the bee’s eye finds foundations for constructive initiatives. They value colors, beauty, the abundance of resources available to the collective, resources that, once gathered, are shared with the group, which in turn carries out the necessary actions.

In evaluating reality objectively, one is able to widen one’s vision with every foray into the field. Indeed, it is essential to widen the horizon, which can mean access to more and better resources. One observes from a broad perspective, plans, strategizes and carries out the harvest.

Beings with a bee’s eye stand out for sharing directions and resources. When they look constructively, they feel no need to keep everything for themselves. They understand that there is more to discover beyond the horizon. Acting positively, they have little time left to criticize others’ actions.

On the other hand, those who cultivate the fly’s eye specialize in identifying flaws, defects, problems and dubious intentions. In other words, they fixate on the waste of existence. Like engineers of structures already built and unhappy with their own lives, they concentrate on checking, in other people’s lives, what they judge to be “normal.”

Often wearing the light and color of shadows, they turn possibilities into obstacles, attempts into losses. With their gaze worn down by daily life and their heads bowed, focused on the ground, they get irritated seeing beings with a bee’s eye carrying out countless projects, celebrating.

I believe many beings with a bee’s eye, after being targeted by beings with a fly’s eye, gave up. They lost the shine, the melody, the joy. They follow a colorless path. Poor fly beings! Isolated, resigned and silent. Discouraged, they forget the other possibilities and settle into a narrow journey.

The neck, used to bowing toward the ground, loses flexibility, no longer allows contemplation of the horizon and, in an effort to survive, rejects it. The sense of smell, used to the foul, no longer distinguishes pleasant aromas, depriving itself of the simple pleasures of gatherings and meals. The fly beings, exasperated, long to destroy. And they destroy. They want the world to mirror their distorted vision.

I argue that we should neither give up nor lose our gaze of admiration. We need to be compassionate, to respect the pain of the fly’s eyes, but not to let ourselves be subdued by them.