Flying over the Sea of Japan in 1954, the electrical system on Lieutenant Jim Lovell's Banshee night fighter suddenly short-circuited, plunging him into absolute darkness.

All at once, the future commander of Apollo 13 found himself lost in space above the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night. No instrumentation. No way to find his ship.

But as the pilot peered into the darkness, he noticed the glow of photoluminescent algae stirred up in the wake of his aircraft carrier. He followed the trail back to his ship and landed safely.

Imagine if Lieutenant Lovell's navigational equipment had failed but the cockpit lights had stayed on. He never would have seen the faint glimmer that enabled him to find his way home. Being in the dark was exactly what he needed to see the light.

We've all had similar, albeit less dramatic, experiences. You're looking for one thing and you find something else. Why does that happen? Because your eyes are functioning precisely the way they're supposed to.

We perceive brightness and color through cones concentrated in the fovea, positioned at the eye's center. We detect fainter objects using rods, which occupy the eye's outer regions to perceive dim, monochromatic light.

When the cones and rods work together, we see more of the big picture. How that happens opens our eyes to this week's entry to the Ethical Lexicon:

Averted vision | noun

Deliberately looking away in order to see faint objects more clearly.

First alluded to by Aristotle, averted vision allows us to process more subtle, nuanced visual data by looking away from an object of interest. Think of how filtering makes it possible to study the details of the sun's surface by eliminating the intense light that would otherwise damage the eye. Since the cones register brighter light, we need to rely on the peripheral rods to capture gradations of shading. Paradoxically, too much light makes it impossible to see.

In life, the consequences of our actions live at the periphery of our inner vision. The same is true for ethics, which occupy the gray areas between black and white, between right and wrong.

Just as looking away can bring fuzzy objects into clearer focus, turning our mind's eye in a new direction can help us spot unsuspected angles and unforeseen consequences. Redirecting our intellectual and intuitive vision can save us from overconfidence built on the false belief that what we see is all there is.

The willingness to look into the darkness requires us to confront the limits of our own knowledge and understanding. Only with intellectual humility will we expose ourselves to new information, new ideas and new ways of looking at ourselves and our world. Once we do, we discover that acknowledging our own ignorance and unconscious bias yields a dazzling conflagration of illuminating insight.

Peripheral information also benefits us by providing context. Viewing in tight focus might allow us to see more clearly, but that clarity often comes at the expense of broader perspective. Not seeing the forest for the trees is more than a cliche. It's a warning, alerting us to the danger of missing the whole picture because we are overfocused on what we think is most important.

The need for perspective was addressed by ancient Judean jurisprudence. When considering a ruling, the high court of 23 judges would always solicit the opinion of the most junior member first, then proceed up the ladder of seniority. The president of the court spoke last.

Not only did this ensure that younger members would not be intimidated by their seniors; it also allowed more seasoned judges the opportunity to reflect on the fresh insights of youth. Whether in business, politics or academia, wise leaders encourage fresh voices to express their own ideas without fear of ridicule or rebuke.

Here we see the true value of diversity. A multiplicity of diverse backgrounds and experiences benefits a team or a community with the broadest possible variety of angles. A culture of mutual respect gets them as close as possible to the truth.

Ethics and wisdom are possible only when we see the whole picture. Awareness of what we might be missing is every bit as important as what stands right before our eyes.

See more by Yonason Goldson and features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists; visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Amanda Dalbjörn at Unsplash