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By Justin Dean
August 22, 2010
Last week Les talked about visual perception. How what we think we
see isn’t always what it seems. What I got out of his talk was that
the difference between perception and reality stemmed from two
general reasons. We rarely get the full picture, our eyes don’t see
everything. And the second part is that our minds fill in what we
don’t see with information gathered from previous experiences. I
imagine babies “see” quite differently than us due to this lack of
experience to fill in the gaps.
Today I would like to take the idea of imperfect perception a step
further, past vision, and to our general understanding of the world
around us and how it influences our everyday thoughts, emotions and
actions. In our everyday lives we experience a myriad of actions and
events from the mundane to the extraordinary. Just as we only see a
small portion of what we think we see we often only get to
experience a small portion of what is occurring to us. Furthermore
our previous experiences shape how we perceive our world and help to
fill in the gaps in our experience. The same event can have vastly
different meanings to different people, evoking completely opposite
reactions and emotions. This isn’t a bad thing but it can easily
lead to misunderstandings. Having a better understanding of how
different people can perceive similar events or even the same event
in vastly different ways can help connect better with the people
around us. I would like to share a few examples to illustrate this
difference in perception.
One of the most common examples I thought of happens in nearly every
sporting event. One team wins and the other loses. When I was a
young child I fondly remember gathering with my family to watch the
Redskins play football. I didn’t know much about football and knew
less about the team but it was fun and exciting. The experience left
me with good feelings and I still enjoy watching them play. They are
on “probation” for me however. Now if I sit down with my neighbor,
an avid Cowboys fan, to watch a game between our two teams, we will
be watching the same game, but I assure you however that we will not
be experiencing the same thing. My neighbor will cheer at every
Dallas first down meanwhile I’ll be bemoaning the mismanagement of
Synder. Conversely he will be cringing at the awesomeness of McNabb
while I revel in the glory of stealing a future hall of famer away
from the Eagles. This sort of thing happens at nearly every sporting
event, there is a winning team and a losing team, winning fans and
losing fans. The different experience comes from prospective. It
comes from our past experiences.
For those of you who aren’t football fans I hope your still with me
as that will be my only sports based example. In danger of trying to
be too clever I think its interesting that those of you who are
football fans quite likely experienced that last example distinctly
different than those who are not fans.
I would like to share a personal life event which evoked opposite
reactions from people with very similar backgrounds and histories,
my mother and I. Up to this point in my life my mother and I had
both lived in the same house. We experienced the same family life
and share many of the same values. The event was my first day at
college. Not the first day of classes but the first day of actually
staying at college, move in day. I was excited to start a new
chapter of my life, to meet new people and form new relationships
and friendships. I had no close friends attending the same school so
it was like a new slate, a new world. I was ready to jump in with
both feet. I was so excited that I didn’t really notice how upset my
mother was the whole time we were moving my stuff in until it was
time for my parents to leave. She gave me a heartfelt hug but
couldn’t hold back any longer and the sobs started. Taken by
surprise I tried to comfort her with word of comfort. I really
wasn’t that far away. I would be home on some weekends and on
holidays. I don’t think it was until recently after a very short few
years with my own children that I really understand my mother’s
sadness of that day. I am also certain that when my Son goes off to
college I will realize how naive I was to think I understood her
feelings now.
Another powerful example I thought of while thinking on life
experiences and perspective happened on 9/11 or very soon
thereafter. I vividly remember the day. Having my housemate call me
over to the television to see for myself what was happening. Seeing
in hollywood disbelief the second plane hitting the tower and then
the towers falling down. I imagined the horror and senseless death
occurring as I am sure many of you had as well. I couldn't for the
life of me reason why anyone let alone a group of people would do
such a thing. Later on the news there was a clip of people in some
middle eastern country dancing in the streets. The news presented
them as dancing because of the towers. Again I couldn't fathom how
anyone could feel such a way when so many innocent people had died.
Were they even human to have such feelings? Fast forward to last
year at a family christmas gathering. A distant relative was showing
a few others some clips he had found online relating to the war in
Iraq. The clips were raw footage of military action happening in
Iraq. To be honest I was intrigued. It was a raw uncensored feed
into part of what my country was/is/has done in part in my name. The
shocking part did not come from the clips however but from the
eerily familiar reaction from some of my family members to that of
those middle eastern dancing men shown on TV years before. I am
still angry at myself for not confronting them on their feelings. It
does however provide an illustration of how our perspective effects
our emotion and not always in a positive way. It also gave me a
possible rational for seemingly irrational behaviors based on
differing perspectives.
I was telling my wife the idea of this sermon a few weeks back. Her
comment to me was something along the following. "Okay perspective
effects reaction I get it but so what." It was a good point. I think
I have at least a partial answer for this and it relates to the
Golden Rule. I have always tried to live by the Golden Rule, "Do
onto others as you would have them do onto you." It's one of the
best rules to live by that I can think of but, there is a problem
with the Golden Rule. Not everyone experiences the same things in
the same way. I have a few examples to illustrate the problem with
the Golden Rule relating to differing perspectives.
Cayty, my wife, and I were starting to seriously date. I thought it
would be nice to take her to the beach. I love the beach. The pace
is relaxing, the sounds soothing, the sand soft and welcoming, the
sun is warming and the ocean cooling when it gets a bit warm. There
is no place more romantic than a nice secluded beach. So this is
trip is going to be fantastic. We arrive in the evening and I
convince her to come out for an evening walk on the beach. After
walking over to the beach from our place we take our shoes off and
step into the sand. The first words out of her mouth are. "Ewww, its
dirty" Confused I look around at her feet looking for pieces of
trash. Nothing. Apparently the sand is dirty and this was not to be
the romantic getaway that I was expecting. The Golden Rule had
failed me and despite my best intentions that first trip did not
start off as well as I had hoped.
Interestingly enough last month we went clamming on the bay side of
Ocean City. My first thought stepping into the muddy bay was eww
this is dirty and Cayty couldn't have enjoyed it more. The soft
squishy feeling of wet mud between your toes was quite enjoyable for
her, somehow.
Another example of the Golden Rule not working as it should due to
differing perspective happened to me in high school. A very good
friend of mine became quite religious, eventually becoming saved.
Soon after she became quite insistent that I go to church or at the
very least think about the idea of getting saved. I have never been
religious person. I don't have anything against God or the idea of
God he just hasn't ever really been for me. The insistent nagging
about me not being saved over time became corrosive to our
relationship and we soon stopped talking or even relating very much.
She had the very best intentions, she wanted to save me from
everlasting hell. If I believed any of my friends were in danger of
such a fate I would do everything in my power to prevent such a
tragic ending. In that way I understand her motives I just couldn't
stand the effect of those good intentions. Worse yet there was no
positive resolution to our differences.
There are a few lessons in these examples.
We all experience this world in our own distinct way. This is
something to rejoice in. Existence is an amazing thing and that we
only get to experience a small slice of it is counteracted by
uncountable number of different ways all of Gods creatures
experience it. How we go go into something our mindset and previous
experience, often effects what we take away, this can make an awful
day great and a great day awful. We don't always realize that what
we are experiencing is only one perspective. In those cases which we
do realize that there are other viewpoints to take it isn't easy
even always possible to change our perspective. Differences in
perspective can cause confusion, misunderstanding, and disagreement
even among the best of people. Our actions, even with the best
intentions, may not have the desired effect and may actually be
counter productive. I am not saying that we should stay home and do
nothing at all but that we should try and do our best to think
critically about the effect our actions have on others, specifically
with regard to others views.
In closing, I would like to encourage everyone to try and come up
with a few of your own examples of how differing perspectives
elicited different reactions from some event in your life. Thank you
all for letting me share.
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