The Cheese Behind Perception and Perspective.
There’s something I recently came across which I think is worth sharing. So you know perception and perspective have different meanings, right? But just how different are these words and what binds them?
A Short Story.
‘Slow silent footsteps accompanied by gentle voices and the smell of stew fill the street. There are shoes arranged outside the door and clothes hung in one corner of the room. The steady breeze coming through the window promises a much-needed nap, a typical Sunday afternoon for Chizoba and Sophia. They have two options which are as delectable as they are different - to take off on a visiting spree or splay across their beds and wander off to dreamland, their Sunday afternoon, their choice. Shuffling slippers announce Tobi’s arrival. He mumbles a greeting, hands over an orange to Chizoba and walks out the same way he came in.’
Now some important questions for you;
1. Why would Tobi do such a thing?
2. What's your take on the situation?
3. What do you think happens afterwards?
Yes this is a classroom and you have one minute to submit your answer booklets (flips hair).
Let's digress a bit to the theories of perception and perspective - please be informed that though I read a lot which I didn't initially understand, for your sake, I undertook the task to provide explanations which are understandable, interpretable, negotiable and dismissible. Yes, you're welcome.
Perception is our interpretation of occurrences. This is influenced by factors such as beliefs, biases, experience and more. Perspective is our point of view on any occurrence, basically our opinions as regards any situation.
For obvious reasons, dear friend, to have an opinion about a subject matter you need to be able to assess and interpret the subject matter. So, as you rightly guessed, perception greatly influences perspective.
Back to our story, what were your answers? Hoping you’ve stored them somewhere, I'll use my powers to explore the perception and perspective of one person. Yes just one, I don't want you whispering that I am a witch afterwards. Again, you're welcome.
Based on beliefs and experiences, you might say Chizoba and Sophia aren't sisters, more like friends cohabiting, and Tobi is a neighbor. He mumbling greetings, giving just Chizoba an orange and walking out without acknowledging Sophia indicates he has an issue with Sophia. You also think this might cause a rift between the roommates and they would choose to remain in awkwardness. Yes, Tobi keeps malice and is awful.
Now that we've established one perception and perspective, we can move to a more common problem - What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI). You really have no way of knowing the entire details because I never told you the entire story- I just showed a snippet of their lives. Though I didn't establish any relationship, your mind somehow skipped this inefficiency and worked up a conclusion. Not rational, right? Yeah, we're not as rational as we like to believe.
There are different ways the story could pan out. They could all be siblings from a polygamous home. Tobi could be on an errand or a romantic partner. Tobi could be a girl or a boy. They could as well be neighbors.
This example shows how restricted our perceptions and perspectives could be, how subjective they become and why our values and standards shouldn't be a yard stick in many cases.
At the moment, it seems like I'm saying you should always doubt your assumptions and conclusions. To be very honest, this sounds unrealistic, and if it were, it sounds like a terrible advice. But thankfully that's not what I'm advising. In my opinion, we should adopt a 'Stop and Think' mentality. Before arriving at a conclusion, you could try viewing the same story from different screens, recognizing that one story can be interpreted in several ways and acknowledging this. With this maybe, just maybe, we would be more understanding, discerning and empathetic.
As a person of higher reasoning, I trust you understand the points made. Feel free to dismiss them after they’ve proven wrong.
I wish you lots of Cheese Balls and Caprisonne.
