Perception Is a Tricky Thing

We see the world how we want to. It’s how two people can walk away from the same experience with entirely different reflections. It’s how we can listen to the same song and I’ll end up dancing around the room while my friend is on the floor in tears. We filter each moment that we absorb through the emotions attached to the memories that are triggered by it. You can't always put your finger on where the moment takes you, but something comes alive inside of you. Whether that’s a wave of excitement, curiosity, irritation, grief, or something else entirely.

There’s a cognitive bias referred to as the halo effect that affects how the human brain processes everyday information. It’s a shortcut we take that forms opinions based on limited details. A limited knowledge of Chris Brown’s reputation would easily allow someone to relish his successful music career, unpolluted by an awareness of his domestic violence convictions. That's the halo effect: a perception that would undeniably be formed in ignorance, but does that necessarily mean we should deem it invalid? Is perception something we should intentionally tailor, or simply allow to be and shape our lives?

I’m inclined to say that I’d always opt for the most informed perspectives, but I don’t think I do. In fact, I’d argue that many of us don’t. We will often intentionally ignore unforgiving qualities to preserve the emotional purity of a memory, and the hope of reincorporating such emotions in our future.

I'm referring to emotions like the eagerness you feel before playing your favorite song. The one that’s been with you through freshman year homecoming, the trek to your third-period chemistry class every day sophomore year, that one catastrophic Halloween party in eleventh grade, and so many more core memories.

You're typing the title into the Spotify search bar when you remember a declaration you made to God last week to start cutting out secular music. So you probably shouldn’t be listening to it, but you love the vibe it creates in your car as you drive I-35 with the windows down. You convince yourself that "it’s not that deep," slowly warping your perceptual integrity in your efforts to stay connected to the place that song takes you. You're desperate to keep that emotional bliss from being wiped off your mental map. But what is the basis of this integrity? The virtue society is inclined to uphold in the way we live our lives and apply to the choices we daily make. Is it the integrity from those vocabulary posters in every elementary school's hallway? The "even when no one is watching" kind of honesty? Whatever it may be, the older I get, the more complicated it seems. The more everything I do starts to resemble the iceberg that sank the Titanic: simple on the surface, yet supported by an underlying mass that carries a dangerous amount of power.

There very well may be a singular foundation of truth that this life is framed by, but it is beyond evident that there isn’t one singular way to live it. I think our perceptions are a key indicator of the uniqueness of our journeys. That assertion inclines me to be more willing to respect the validity of perceptions that vary from mine. To accept that not every interpretation has to be the same. But a subsequent question must be what “respecting validity” looks like and the degree to which it should be extended.

Even in writing this, I don't feel as though I've reached any settling conclusions about perception. That's the thing about intangibles. Like the concept that color doesn't exist within objects themselves, but rather in the way our brains interpret the light they reflect. Those things that are just really challenging to wrap your brain around. One of those things you create endless hypothetical questions about at your seventh-grade lunch table. It's just another one of those things.