Dear Friends:
Hello, again. It has been quite some time. Please accept my apologies for not posting to this site. I have made a bargain with myself (which is always a win-lose situation) that I will post weekly. Keep track, and yell, if you wish.
Perception (used interchangeably here with perspective) is the conduit through which impressions and their ensuing emotional responses are formed. This explains why two people can witness the same event, taste the same cuisine, hear the same music, and walk away from the experience with completely opposite feelings. One individual is delighted -- the other is disgusted (which rather brings to mind the example of a honeymoon for a couple brought together in a pre-arranged marriage).
Perception has its roots in many variables, some of which include past experience, genetic inheritance, biochemistry, familiarity, social influence, time, distance and context. Malcolm Gladwell, author of THE TIPPING POINT, brought this last term into popular use.
Context is the way in which you see your circumstances. A feeble example would be where a young woman, at home by herself while her husband is away on a business trip, is awakened at night by the sound of someone coming in through the living room window; sadly for her husband, who has come home early {with a bouquet of red roses} and has misplaced his keys, she slams him over the head with an Oreck vacuum cleaner, thinking that he is a burglar.
The vacuum is under warranty, but the husband's cranium, tragically, is not. Because of the context, the young woman acted in a way that was terribly misguided. But, due to this element of context, she thought that her action was absolutely justified...and, based upon how she viewed her circumstances in the perceptual distortion of that moment, she did the right thing.
EPILOGUE: The husband lived, ran for high political office, and won. The wife convinced a judge and jury, after reading Gladwell's book, that it was a case of "context", and was freed after being found "not guilty".
On a serious note, the effect of time on perception is very significant. As we grow older, it seems that each year passes more quickly. If we glance at some high clouds for a moment, they appear to be still; but if we relax and watch them for a few minutes, we notice that the wind is pushing them majestically across the sky. We plant seeds, and they grow -- but we do not actually detect the minute upward movement of a tender sprout through the soil -- we gauge growth at intervals, each day when we stop to look at the garden.
It is much the same with distance. Standing on the ground and looking at a building, the Earth seems flat and motionless. From a space shuttle, as we get further away from the planet, we see that it is, in fact, almost spherical in shape. Combining the effects of time and distance, beyond the ordinary realm of our limited senses, we would notice that the Earth is not only shaped like a sphere...we would notice that it is rotating about its axis (albeit a bit wobbly), and is slowly revolving around the Sun in an elliptical orbit.
Perceptions limit us. They let us see the trees without taking notice of the forest. They don't permit us to realize, when we are very young, that seasons are, well, seasonal. We see isolated examples and assume that they are indicative of the entire group. We are always acting on insufficient information. We try to extrapolate a trajectory without sufficient points. The error is compounded by the sad fact that when one of us is looking at the head of a big beast, the other is looking at the tail.
The narrowly drawn parameters of our perception keep us from seeing and feeling the rhythm of the waves and cycles that constitute the infinite world that surrounds us. We see and sense so little of what really matters. On solemn reflection, our short lifetimes not only keep us from understanding eachother... they keep us from seeing the order which likely lies beyond the chaotic, and cause us to react more often than we reflect.
It is something worth thinking about. When dealing with others, we have to allow for the differences or flaws in our perception of the same events. Being aware of the perception barrier can change the way you observe, listen and communicate.
Signals are so often misinterpreted. In our relationships, there tends to be far too much friendly fire. But that is merely my perception.
Fatefully,
Douglas Castle
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