Perception

February 17, 2015
Day 293

I've been thinking a lot about perception lately.  It's one of the world's greatest problems, yet also the one law of human nature we seem to ignore most often.  We're all just stuck in our own heads, looking out through the same two eyes all the time, not seeing what or how the rest of humanity does.

A skewed perception of ourselves and how we come across can be very detrimental.  We may have no clue how our postings on social media come across, or how people feel when they're around us.  I went through an awful year-long period of clinical depression, and though I thought people saw me as sad and lost, the way I really felt, others described me as just "crazy".

Misperceptions can sometimes be a good thing, though.  Someone lacking skills or so-called traditional beauty may feel they really have one or both of these, and simply exuding a high level of confidence can help them get past any obstacles in the workplace or in society.  I might perceive someone as being less than attractive, while others may see that same person as the most attractive person ever.  Fact and perception can be interchangeable!

Likewise, I've known plenty of people I'd call drop-dead sexy who look in the mirror and think poorly of themselves.  Their self-perception isn't swayed by the compliments of others, because something behind their own eyes in the mirror still truly believes otherwise.

We see people of other races and religions than us, and the first thing our eyes see is the difference, the characteristics of the soul across from us that vary from the characteristics we have.  We miss the fact that we both love ice cream, a good romantic comedy, and living a moral life.  We miss all the similarities that are usually there, because all our eyes or brains see are the differences.

Perception is a dangerous, dangerous law of nature.  We all perceive completely false facts every single day, and we all let slip an unfair judgment here and there the way we would a burp.  And no matter how much we wrap our minds around the concept of perception, we're all still lost, because we can't comprehend that each person staring back at us through their own eyes has a completely different perception too: a different perception about us, a different perception about humanity, and a different perception about themselves.

Anaïs Nin wrote, "We don't see things as they are.  We see them as we are."  For years you've heard the phrase, "Until you've walked in the shoes of another..." but perhaps a better reminder is this: until you've stared out at the world through the eyes of another, you cannot know even a fraction of that which can be seen and understood.  Outside of some Being John Malkovich-esque reality, we will never have this gift as human beings.  We will never, ever understand exactly how another person sees and thinks.  It remains a great mystery, as it always will be, that we simply cannot ever hope to fully appreciate another person's viewpoint the way they do.  We have not seen through their eyes, and so we must forever respect the mystery, and respect the perceptions we will never, ever know.