In so doing, he allows us both to understand the world around us and, to a certain extent, to transcend it. The Ties That Blind Oshry is interested in the systems of our lives, the forms they take and the patterns they trace through time and space. Like water to a fish, we are usually blind to the systems that surround us, that shape us and mold our experience of the world. When we are blind to our systems, we are at their mercy. It is only when we learn to see them, to understand their strengths and their weaknesses, that we have any hope of surmounting them.
Spatial blindness is common in business relationships.
As a middle manager, I see my world, but it's not easy for me to see the world as my Board of Directors experiences it. It's easy for me to feel the pulls and tasks that face me daily, but it's not easy for me to experience the world that my employees must survive in. Temporal blindness allows me to see the way things are today, but I don't see how they got this way, the years of pressures and dangers and opportunities that shaped the present. It's easy for me to blame them for creating my current problems, but it's not easy for me to understand how each of the decisions that led to today actually made sense to someone, at some time. Relational and Process blindness are similar, in that they both allow us to see the personalities, the individuals, that plague us and support us, but we don't see the systemic forces that shape their actions.