Perception

Years ago I read a story about a man who was building a home. One day he was nailing two boards together and accidentally hit his thumb with the hammer. It was a direct hit and the resultant pain was unbearable. To ease his discomfort, he began to wildly jump up and down as he shouted obscenities. In the distance, two elderly women were taking a stroll in the countryside and stopped to watch his antics. One of the women commented, “Look how beautiful he sings and dances,” and then continued on their leisurely walk.

Everything we see, everything we hear, everything we touch, taste, and smell is filtered through our perception.  In the field of Psychology, perception refers to our interpretation of what we take in through our senses. Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us. What two people see in the same situation can be startlingly different, and that is the beauty and aggravation of perception.

Some of us perceive any kind of criticism or suggestion as an attack. Those with a glass half-empty perception believe the world is on the brink of disaster while those with a glass half-full perception see a new consciousness arising.  Perception can literally take us to the heights of heaven or the depths of despair and everywhere in between depending upon how we interpret what we see, what we value and believe to be true, what we hear and understand people are saying, and what we feel as we take it all in.

When we see a film, we perceive its meaning in different ways. When I read the commentary of movie reviewers, oftentimes I cannot believe that they saw the same movie that I saw! The fact is, some of us are more observant of the imagery; some of us are more attentive to the dialogue, some of are more conscious of the feelings the characters are experiencing, and some of us are more focused on the overall storyline. We are all watching the same film but perceiving it differently. Our values, philosophy, and life experiences alter our perception.

Different perceptions take us on different paths in life. Mother Teresa saw the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor and spent her entire life working on their behalf. Composer Johann Sebastian Bach said he stumbled over notes everywhere he walked and therefore became a prolific musician and composer. Picasso saw distortions of the human anatomy and his art mirrored his perception. Walt Whitman saw beauty all around him and his poetry reflected his perception. Gandhi perceived life as an opportunity for greater service to humanity and therefore, spent his entire life dedicated to this principle.

As noted by novelist C.S Lewis, “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.”