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blogging, communication, insanitybytes22, life, love, marriage, perception
Matt has a charming post up called, The Power of Understanding. He speaks of communication and how someone being colorblind is going to perceive things differently from someone who is not. He says in part that it’s a bit like, “Two sane people arguing about how something right in front of them looks totally different than what the other is describing, and both thinking the other must be crazy or intentionally trying to upset them.”
It’s a great analogy, in love, life, relationships, even in politics, being open to the possibility that someone is perceiving things differently from you, has a different set of experiences, has a different kind of wisdom, can be really helpful. It’s interesting that we are so prone to assign evil intention, bad motivation, to the things people say and do.
With all good humor here, that has really become the fruit of so many of our life-conversations. “You’re crazy, you’re a moron, you’re wrong, you’re living in alternate reality.” I’ve now heard those things for so long, I’ve accepted they’re just a given and so named myself insanitybytes. Gotcha, at some point or another, I’m just going to be labeled crazy.
Here is where things begin to get a bit complicated, however. Not all views are valid, not all perceptions are true, not all ideas are equal. Not to pick on the colorblind here, but if they are not perceiving colors, that does not mean we should declare the color does not exist and the nature of the thing we are observing has somehow now changed. Not all perceptions are equal.
The perceptions we have also have a great deal to do with the roles we are in, where we are walking in the world. I love to go look at clouds and see the shapes, the stories written there. Works great as a wife and mom, but not so well in the work world, as in you need a little bit more concrete beneath your perceptions. (Unless you’re a writer or a cartoonist or something.)
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I agree, that’s pretty much the basic problem in every confrontation, big or small, that we believe that our standpoint is the only right one and everyone else should believe what we do. Great explanation!
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I have found that trying to understand what someone believes and why they believe it is better than trying to change what they believe. Especially when it comes to politics. At the end of the conversation, I can walk away clearly understanding where the other person is coming from. Clarity, is better than agreement, when you can’t agree and it does lead to less name calling and labeling.
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This reminds me of “perception:” remember the b & w pic if someone looks at it, it’s an old man or someone else sees it’s a beautiful woman? If you can see both by tilting it a bit, you can see both. For those of us who can see both, we’re a bit more emphatic or creative or something! I’m glad I could easily see both as I do try to be emphatic. But these riots are another thing….paid thugs for someone evil trying to squash all goodness. Really, my hope rests in Jesus Christ who wins in the end!!!
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Such great thoughts in this post. You see this inability to comprehend other views often (all the time?) in political discussions. I don’t know if it’s always been this way and perhaps maybe people in the past just did better job in hiding their ugliness, but the level of meanness people immediately jump to is dismaying. We devalue life in so many ways which inevitably shows up in personal relationships.
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For generations, people wondered whether or not we all see the same thing when we look at the same picture. That was answered some months ago (more than a year ago, as I recall) when a certain photograph went viral. You know the one I mean? The blue and black dress that many thought was white and gold? If we can see different colors in the same picture–and neither of us is colorblind–then there must be other differences of perception as well. J.
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I remember my mom always sorting my dad’s socks after washing. He was color-blind (couldn’t perceive the difference between navy blue, black, or maroon. We all thought it strange when color TV came out and he bought one. He made us smile when he confessed, “there is a great pleasure of contrast when I increase the saturation control”. How extremely too vivid the colors became! But he enjoyed it as a miraculous gift of technology.
I used to get embarrassed when he came to pick me up from school with miss-matched socks and loud shits that didn’t coordinated with his pants. But then I saw him stumble over a parking barrier one day – the 1st and only time I saw my dad fall. Discovering his vulnerability opened the ever important door of empathy and ultimately made his disability an accepted (and appreciated) fact of life that awakened me to the broader acceptance of tolerance for others who may somehow be different from me – physically, emotionally, or politically.
I still have a huge problem accepting intolerance and willful bias by others. It is an enigma to me, that objectivity is lacking in so many people, even when I fully accept that but for the grace of God…
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