Perception
basically means to see, hear, or become aware of something or someone through
our fundamental senses. Distortion Is nothing but misreporting or deformation
from the reality. This necessarily does not mean we don’t understand reality
but our perception might manipulate the same. So, what’s wrong if we don’t perceive
correctly? I thought about this question before I wrote further. Suppose ‘Ron’
was your best friend until you decided not to talk to him any further. This
means your perception helped you to form an opinion about Ron that concluded
that he needs your ‘Boycott’. Correct? What if your perception itself is
distorted? This brings us to an interesting journey of ‘Distorted Perception’
which is an Enigma. Let’s begin the process.
Modern
humans perceive ‘the least’ and arrive at opinions ‘the most’. We are so
confident when we give our opinions about many topics. In fact, I believe, one
should always express their opinions, provided they understand that opinions
are ‘open-ended’ and not ‘closed’. Now, opinion literally means a view or
judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. Remember
Ron? Your opinion about him is a judgement
passed which basically is ‘close-ended’. When we say the term ‘open ended’ it
means there are possibilities. ‘Close ended’ is a dead end to the subject
matter eliminating every possibility. Truth and falsehood can also be an Enigma-
a mystery. An ‘optical illusion’ caused by atmospheric conditions, especially
the appearance of a sheet of water in a desert or on a hot road caused by the
refraction of light from the sky by heated air is momentary truth for the
observer. Here, your perception suffered distortion and the culprit was your
senses. Similarly, Ron was boycotted and a possibility was also eliminated. To
understand this concept from a different angle, you consider some leaders as
angels and a few as devils. Those whitewashed angelic leaders are your perception
which you accepted without any speculation.
We see kids ‘philosophising’
today. Such a welcome change! But such concrete opinions have been the problem.
As a kid, I used to philosophise silly things! I would dream if I could have
wings! What if I could hold Aladdin’s magic lamp to order samosas with ‘green
chutney’! Such impoverished dreams indeed! Today, kids are extremely
intelligent. For them love hurts! They would have tons of ‘best’ friends. I
always knew superlative degrees as singular and if ‘plural’ it used to come
with the structure ‘one of the’. Kids today defy this logic. Today Ron is in a ‘committed’
relationship with Alice but he also likes Hermione who is ‘committed’ to Sam
but enjoys her schedule with Alex who is Ron’s brother. Imagine this complication!
Love doesn’t hurt but this shit definitely does!
Perceptions are
bound to change. And those changed perceptions would also undergo change. May
be this is evolution- ‘social evolution’! As humans, lets fall in love with
this ‘journey’. In this process, we would lose people midway, gain a few too!
It doesn’t make our journey defective but it teaches some effective lessons. Our
flaws can also be evaluated if we keep our self-introspecting eyes ‘open’. Perceive
your own ‘self’ to realise your imperfections which can even be ‘beautiful’.
Perception, isn’t it? Some ‘Distortions’ can be affirmative too!
