The Beauty of Perception

When I was a boy my grandfather told me a wonderful story about a man who bought his son a white horse and all the neighbors marveled at its beauty. They told the boy how lucky he was to own such a regal animal. One day when the boy was riding, he fell off and broke his leg. It was a very serious break and the boy was bedridden for many months. The neighbors told the boy’s father it was a tragedy that his son broke his leg. If he hadn't owned the horse, they said, the accident would never have happened. Then, a war broke out and all the able-bodied young men were summoned to fight. Now the neighbors told the injured boy's father what good fortune it was that his son broke his leg, since he would be spared going to war and potentially being killed. Following the boy's recovery, his horse ran away and the boy became very sad. The neighbors told the father it was a tragedy that the horse the young man loved so dearly ran away. But one day the white horse returned but not alone. A dozen majestic horses had joined her and now the family had more amazing horses than they ever dreamed of before. And the neighbors rejoiced again.

In the field of Psychology, perception refers to your interpretation of what you take in through the senses. Perception is your sensory experience of the world around you. What two people see in the same situation can be startlingly different, and this is the beauty and excitement, the challenge and annoyance of perception.

When you see a film, you perceive its meaning in different ways. When I read the commentary of movie reviewers, oftentimes I am shaking my head in disbelief that they saw the same movie that I saw! The fact is, some people are more observant of the imagery; some are more attentive to the dialogue, some are more conscious of the feelings the characters are experiencing, and some people are more focused on the overall storyline. We are all watching the same film but perceiving it differently.

Different perceptions lead to different paths in life. Mother Teresa had a calling and spent her entire life working on behalf of the poorest of the poor. 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. Gandhi perceived life as an opportunity for greater service to humanity and therefore, spent his life dedicated to this principle. Walt Whitman saw beauty all around him and his poetry reflected his excitement about life and the delightful people he met on his travels.

Historian and philosopher, David Hume wrote, “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”