“I only have eyes for you” takes on new meaning when thinking of the colossal squid. Yes, that’s its official name. The biggest one ever captured measured twenty-six feet in length, and marine biologists estimate that the largest ones may go to forty-five. The eyes of the sucker that got entangled in a fishing net in the Ross Sea in 2007 were eleven inches in diameter. These big-as-a-dinner-plate peepers makes it the creature with the biggest eyes in the animal world. These eyes take in an enormous amount of light in the dark depths (it can descend to 6,500 feet) in which it aggressively hunts.
The substance of the popular love song with the “only eyes for” title – composed for the 1934 film Dames – means that a person is only interested in the one to whom the phrase is spoken. What is being communicated is summed up in the last verse of the song: “Maybe millions of people go by / but they all disappear from view / and I only have eyes for you.” The substance of the song is this: commitment.
The song begs the following questions for life in general: what does commitment mean, and to what am I committed? There are, of course, different types and levels of commitment, and it behooves any individual to identify and prioritize such. To not do so might lead to – and often does – committing personal resources to things of lesser importance while those with greater value are relegated to the back of the bus.
Commitment possibilities are many: God, family, country, career, friends, avocation, self (yes, attending to one’s well-being is a commitment), etcetera. Perhaps if human beings had eyes as big as that of the colossal squid we could more easily affirm and keep our focus on what we believe is of greater importance to us.
A first century wise man wrote to friends encouraging them to keep “the eyes of your heart enlightened.” Those can be pretty big eyes. Maybe even bigger than the colossal squid’s.
