Our own personal reality reflects and influences our thoughts. There is continuous flow in between the sensory information we get from our body and our environment and the processing of this information.
Like I mentioned in my last blog, we perceive not all in the same way, we interpret according to our learning experience, we evaluate the consequences and act upon the result and our memory stores the information.
According to our personality we will prefer to ponder on consequences and actions ourselves or we will refer to outside sources to check upon consequences and actions- we prefer to have the reactions and advices of others.
I like to keep things for myself, or I like to share a problem. That means that our inner thoughts and emotions either turn in our heads or are voiced out.
Thoughts and speak will then be fixed in the memory- or will they?
Try to remember the last for you important talk you have had with somebody. You will probably be able to recall your principal arguments about what was important and the general reaction of the other side… but do you remember every word? Maybe there were important parts that you didn’t notice as important and therefore didn’t store in your memory.
But today, there are other parts that have grown in importance and suddenly you remember those much more clearly than the rest that has been said.
Did you ever have somebody being mad at you for something you supposedly said and you don’t have a clue what he is talking about? Obviously it wasn’t important to you but it touched a sensitive point in the other and its importance grew in time and now that is about the only thing he remembers.
Family feuds and important conflicts can be constructed on selective and transformative memories that are solidified in the shape of a myth- in the end nobody knows the real story anymore.
The same thing happens when we ponder in thought, the more days go by, the more our memory about past reflections transforms: certain aspects are enhanced, others are diminished. Small events are being blown up according to what fits into our actual state of mind.
If I am convinced that my colleague is stupid I will clearly remember all his mistakes and when he made a fool of himself, but somehow the events where he helped me on a file or where he had a vital information to give are reduced to minor hazard in y memory.
Speech and thought are therefore unreliable sources for generating accurate memories- that is why some cultures prefer the written word. But even writing doesn’t protect from misinterpretation in later times. According to our environment we tend to interpret a text.
A word can have a different meaning in different contexts and cultures. The right definition of words is one of the obsessions of law.
A lot of sacred texts are today understood like a news report- as relating facts. At the time they were written, symbols were important, not facts. We live in a world based on facts so we will look our and interpret information as facts.
Still, concerning our own life-span and culture the written word seems to be quite reliable as source of memory about history. Historians basically work with written or recorded material.
We can use this reliability of writing for ourselves. Instead of brooding on our evaluations of informations, actions to take and on our emotions, we can write them down. When we write them down, we can look at them- today, tomorrow, in a month. Our attitude may have changed then, but our mind can’t cheat us: that is what we thought. An outside memory of our inner states of mind.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Perceptions are my reality
It is easy to see things in a detached manner if you’re not concerned or if you have the necessary distance.
It is more easy for the hermit on the hill to practice detachment than for the consultant. It is easier for the consultant to have the necessary distance because he is less concerned.
One colleague of mine almost broke out in tears at a training session when he said what he appreciated most about his present life and his job was that he didn’t carry that immense burden of result anymore.
Even if you’re a stable person, in harmony with yourself, arriving at the office Monday morning smiling and happy, 5 minutes later this smile will be non existent and the demon of reality will take over when you learn of the incredible mess lets say a production has made contrary to your detailed instructions.
Reality is what matters around us in our lives, what we feel has an impact. It can be the acts of others ( in positive or negative sense) it can be the weather ( when you forgot to take an umbrella), it can be your own body ( that lump in your stomach).
The most important element is that we believe it to be real and what we believe to have an impact on our life and thinking.
A fool often is just somebody whose reality seems unbelievable to others. ( in the movie North Northwest by Hitchcock even the mother of the hero doesn’t believe his story- this is an important element in a lot of psycho thrillers)
Observation is checked by our own mind according to probability and own experience. Real for us is what we believe to be real. Reality is what we know out of our own experience to be important and relevant for us.
A social worker probably has trouble understanding the importance of flexibility of working hours, which for any production manager is an important reality. A production manager on the contrary will have somehow trouble understanding the importance of a worker being present at a school meeting of his child. ( Unless, being a father, he relates to the problem out of his own experience) A common problem in between husband and wife is the difference of realities of their worlds. The more their realities differ, the less they will be able to understand each others concerns.
In a schizophrenic’s or paranoid’s reality persecution will often play a huge role. For such an individual there is plenty of evidence of this fact in the act and the deeds of the people around him.
While I was shopping in a big department store I once had the lady who was walking in front of me swirling around and yelling at me to stop persecuting her. My defence that I just happened to be there on my own errand didn’t make the ‘persecution’ she had observed ( I had accidentally taken the same staircase and moved to the same floor as she) less real. She just had a different interpretation of my intentions in her reality.
The same way we tend to interpret what is happening in the world around us according to our reality. Most of the time, we manage to understand the reality of the other sufficiently to act coherently and in accordance of what the society around us expects. The more the reality of the other resembles our own, the better we will be at this. .
Reality ultimately is what we trust to be true. How can I trust what somebody tells me? In evaluating the probability that his words are true according to my own experience and what I have heard from reliable sources. During the Nazi regime there were lots of rumours of what happened to the Jews but most Germans ( including a lot of German Jews ) wouldn’t believe the tales as they seemed too horrid to be real. When our imagination and capacity to relate to our own reality fails, even the ‘proof’ leaves us strangely aloof.
A massacre in Rwanda left Westerners less touched than the attack on the twin towers.
If a fact comes to our notice of which we cannot evaluate the validity for our reality we will rely on information surrounding the fact: is the source relevant for my reality in my experience? Is an authority that I consider important in my reality giving me the assurance that this fact is important in my reality?
Would you rather believe these ideas to be a valid approach if, lets say, Steven Covey expressed a positive opinion on it? Then your reality reflects that Steven Covey’s ideas are valid for yourself and mine might be equally valid for your reality.
Those inner procedures of our mind don’t validate the absolute truth of reality. They just validate the relative truth for us.
A fact we too readily tend to forget.
It is more easy for the hermit on the hill to practice detachment than for the consultant. It is easier for the consultant to have the necessary distance because he is less concerned.
One colleague of mine almost broke out in tears at a training session when he said what he appreciated most about his present life and his job was that he didn’t carry that immense burden of result anymore.
Even if you’re a stable person, in harmony with yourself, arriving at the office Monday morning smiling and happy, 5 minutes later this smile will be non existent and the demon of reality will take over when you learn of the incredible mess lets say a production has made contrary to your detailed instructions.
Reality is what matters around us in our lives, what we feel has an impact. It can be the acts of others ( in positive or negative sense) it can be the weather ( when you forgot to take an umbrella), it can be your own body ( that lump in your stomach).
The most important element is that we believe it to be real and what we believe to have an impact on our life and thinking.
A fool often is just somebody whose reality seems unbelievable to others. ( in the movie North Northwest by Hitchcock even the mother of the hero doesn’t believe his story- this is an important element in a lot of psycho thrillers)
Observation is checked by our own mind according to probability and own experience. Real for us is what we believe to be real. Reality is what we know out of our own experience to be important and relevant for us.
A social worker probably has trouble understanding the importance of flexibility of working hours, which for any production manager is an important reality. A production manager on the contrary will have somehow trouble understanding the importance of a worker being present at a school meeting of his child. ( Unless, being a father, he relates to the problem out of his own experience) A common problem in between husband and wife is the difference of realities of their worlds. The more their realities differ, the less they will be able to understand each others concerns.
In a schizophrenic’s or paranoid’s reality persecution will often play a huge role. For such an individual there is plenty of evidence of this fact in the act and the deeds of the people around him.
While I was shopping in a big department store I once had the lady who was walking in front of me swirling around and yelling at me to stop persecuting her. My defence that I just happened to be there on my own errand didn’t make the ‘persecution’ she had observed ( I had accidentally taken the same staircase and moved to the same floor as she) less real. She just had a different interpretation of my intentions in her reality.
The same way we tend to interpret what is happening in the world around us according to our reality. Most of the time, we manage to understand the reality of the other sufficiently to act coherently and in accordance of what the society around us expects. The more the reality of the other resembles our own, the better we will be at this. .
Reality ultimately is what we trust to be true. How can I trust what somebody tells me? In evaluating the probability that his words are true according to my own experience and what I have heard from reliable sources. During the Nazi regime there were lots of rumours of what happened to the Jews but most Germans ( including a lot of German Jews ) wouldn’t believe the tales as they seemed too horrid to be real. When our imagination and capacity to relate to our own reality fails, even the ‘proof’ leaves us strangely aloof.
A massacre in Rwanda left Westerners less touched than the attack on the twin towers.
If a fact comes to our notice of which we cannot evaluate the validity for our reality we will rely on information surrounding the fact: is the source relevant for my reality in my experience? Is an authority that I consider important in my reality giving me the assurance that this fact is important in my reality?
Would you rather believe these ideas to be a valid approach if, lets say, Steven Covey expressed a positive opinion on it? Then your reality reflects that Steven Covey’s ideas are valid for yourself and mine might be equally valid for your reality.
Those inner procedures of our mind don’t validate the absolute truth of reality. They just validate the relative truth for us.
A fact we too readily tend to forget.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
Perfection
Perfection
We don’t admit it or are aware of it, but one of our goals in life is perfection.
Perfection in our looks, our happiness, our career, our house, our friends….
Our communication is oriented towards communicating this perfection: in job interviews, with friends, family, potential lovers- look I’m great, I’m special, my life is gorgeous.
Advertising does its best to convince us that perfection is out there: photoshop has enhanced the capacity to glamorize models: elongate legs, enlarge eyes, blow up upper body parts and reduce the midline, and everybody is smiling in bliss or looking very cool.
Characters in any soap opera seem to have an exciting life, full of events, emotions and drama.
Even if we try very very hard to make believe, somehow our life doesn’t seem to come up to the standard of perfection that is suggested to us.
We start to see the flaws- overweight, tiny bust-line, no muscles, no energy, no exciting friends, no events- life seems dull.
As hard as we try, somehow something always seems to keep us from our perfect image, the way we want to be. And any event leaves a bad taste- there is always something wrong to it that keeps us from enjoying it fully.
What is perfection? Somehow it seems linked to purity, something that is ideal and not spoilt but flawless.
Perfection is a mental ideal we have constructed , and this mental ideal changes according to our culture and according to time.
Nature seems to have a different law of perfection. In nature nothing is pure : that is one of the laws of life.
A fish in H2O, pure water,will die.
Although one of the laws of life is symmetry, you will not find perfect symmetry in nature:
Neither in a leaf, nor in a human face, nor even in a snowflake.
A cut diamond is a tiny fraction of a raw diamond which had lots of faults. Purity exists next to imperfection.
Rather , in nature perfection expresses through harmony, through a certain equilibrium in the circles of life.
Harmony and equilibrium are laws of nature we tend to forget.
Instead of looking for lacking perfection, try to look for the harmony of imperfection
- those flaws that make us human,
- the dirt that contrasts a clean spot ,
- the noise that enhances the moment of silence,
- the wrinkles that make a smile eternal.
Coming back from my travel to India I can see how much harmony and beauty surrounds me of which I don’t tend to be aware, maybe that is why I adore India-
an image of imperfect eternal beauty.
We don’t admit it or are aware of it, but one of our goals in life is perfection.
Perfection in our looks, our happiness, our career, our house, our friends….
Our communication is oriented towards communicating this perfection: in job interviews, with friends, family, potential lovers- look I’m great, I’m special, my life is gorgeous.
Advertising does its best to convince us that perfection is out there: photoshop has enhanced the capacity to glamorize models: elongate legs, enlarge eyes, blow up upper body parts and reduce the midline, and everybody is smiling in bliss or looking very cool.
Characters in any soap opera seem to have an exciting life, full of events, emotions and drama.
Even if we try very very hard to make believe, somehow our life doesn’t seem to come up to the standard of perfection that is suggested to us.
We start to see the flaws- overweight, tiny bust-line, no muscles, no energy, no exciting friends, no events- life seems dull.
As hard as we try, somehow something always seems to keep us from our perfect image, the way we want to be. And any event leaves a bad taste- there is always something wrong to it that keeps us from enjoying it fully.
What is perfection? Somehow it seems linked to purity, something that is ideal and not spoilt but flawless.
Perfection is a mental ideal we have constructed , and this mental ideal changes according to our culture and according to time.
Nature seems to have a different law of perfection. In nature nothing is pure : that is one of the laws of life.
A fish in H2O, pure water,will die.
Although one of the laws of life is symmetry, you will not find perfect symmetry in nature:
Neither in a leaf, nor in a human face, nor even in a snowflake.
A cut diamond is a tiny fraction of a raw diamond which had lots of faults. Purity exists next to imperfection.
Rather , in nature perfection expresses through harmony, through a certain equilibrium in the circles of life.
Harmony and equilibrium are laws of nature we tend to forget.
Instead of looking for lacking perfection, try to look for the harmony of imperfection
- those flaws that make us human,
- the dirt that contrasts a clean spot ,
- the noise that enhances the moment of silence,
- the wrinkles that make a smile eternal.
Coming back from my travel to India I can see how much harmony and beauty surrounds me of which I don’t tend to be aware, maybe that is why I adore India-
an image of imperfect eternal beauty.
Monday, January 08, 2007
My reality
Since 24 hours I’m back in Europe. Back in the western reality.
The change silences the voice- the extrovert as well as the introvert. I feel holistically mute- and just my eyes move and observe- register.
As any person confronted with difference my mind seems confused- what is real? And that is not only an after effect from changing the geographical scenery.
It is a typical frequent travellers disease- you change the scenery but you take your reality with you.
At home I don’t tend to notice that my reality isn’t the same as that of my neighbours. Of course I find that some of my friends overreact concerning some situations, but I put it of as part of personality.
The problem arises when my reality collides with that of others. That usually happens when situations or way of life differs. The more difference, the harder the collusion.
Who hasn’t been annoyed with good friends who suddenly turn boring after becoming parents or after marrying? On the other hand, some all time bachelors seem to become increasingly weird with age. The home maker seems to lack understanding of some of the realities of life and the friend who started to work is suddenly much less adventurous.
What happens if my reality is extraordinary, exotic and an adventure and collides with that of routine and everyday life and worries of others? They don’t get my passion; I don’t get their lack of time.
In another life of mine I used to room in with Peter, a flight attendant. Our greatest fight were about our reality mergers: Peter didn’t want exotic food at home; he didn’t want to go to a restaurant- all of that was working routine for him. On the other side, having a few days off in the middle of the week after a long trip, Peter just didn’t understand why all of his friends weren’t queuing up to see him- he was all available and ready to meet them. He never seemed to understand that our life continued in his absence and we couldn’t just stop it for him, once he was there.
My reality seems over important to me, so much that I often don’t see the reality of the other, or that I have to constantly remind me of the difference. I get frustrated if others fail to understand my world- my emotions don’t allow for different realities- they want to world to be just mine.
Thanks to all who came and merged their reality with mine for an instant in those recent weeks- through you I learn constantly about myself.
The change silences the voice- the extrovert as well as the introvert. I feel holistically mute- and just my eyes move and observe- register.
As any person confronted with difference my mind seems confused- what is real? And that is not only an after effect from changing the geographical scenery.
It is a typical frequent travellers disease- you change the scenery but you take your reality with you.
At home I don’t tend to notice that my reality isn’t the same as that of my neighbours. Of course I find that some of my friends overreact concerning some situations, but I put it of as part of personality.
The problem arises when my reality collides with that of others. That usually happens when situations or way of life differs. The more difference, the harder the collusion.
Who hasn’t been annoyed with good friends who suddenly turn boring after becoming parents or after marrying? On the other hand, some all time bachelors seem to become increasingly weird with age. The home maker seems to lack understanding of some of the realities of life and the friend who started to work is suddenly much less adventurous.
What happens if my reality is extraordinary, exotic and an adventure and collides with that of routine and everyday life and worries of others? They don’t get my passion; I don’t get their lack of time.
In another life of mine I used to room in with Peter, a flight attendant. Our greatest fight were about our reality mergers: Peter didn’t want exotic food at home; he didn’t want to go to a restaurant- all of that was working routine for him. On the other side, having a few days off in the middle of the week after a long trip, Peter just didn’t understand why all of his friends weren’t queuing up to see him- he was all available and ready to meet them. He never seemed to understand that our life continued in his absence and we couldn’t just stop it for him, once he was there.
My reality seems over important to me, so much that I often don’t see the reality of the other, or that I have to constantly remind me of the difference. I get frustrated if others fail to understand my world- my emotions don’t allow for different realities- they want to world to be just mine.
Thanks to all who came and merged their reality with mine for an instant in those recent weeks- through you I learn constantly about myself.
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