Perception

Perception is everything that we base our lives on. Perception, is the one thing which we could never abandon, for it is as much a part of our nature, as we are a part of this world around us. Our boundless ability to perceive seems to possess the potency to shape the very core of our beliefs. It is the power to perceive and analyse which surpasses most others, in importance.

Perception, however, cannot be confused with, to put it simply, sight. What we see need not be what we perceive. After all, sight is merely a reaction to a physical stimulus in the form of light, but perception, is only partially based on the physical. It is also affected by our state of mind, our likes, dislikes and maybe even our hopes and aspirations. More often than not, we tend to perceive what we want to. Or to put it simply, we see what we want to see. We choose to be oblivious to the naked truth in front of us, and embrace a belief which suggests otherwise.

This tendency, to embrace what isn't so, is not a deliberate ploy we intend to implement so that we may live our lives to the fullest. No. I attribute this to something common. Something we all share. Namely, human nature. We do lie to ourselves, by this power to perceive what isn't so, but we choose not to accept the fact that we lie. We instead, choose to embrace a fool's paradise of sorts.

The power of perception knows no bounds. After reading a comment online here, I came across the "Lone cow" theory (which admittedly, I wasn't aware of, by the way). It poses a rather interesting question - "Would a single cow, isolated from the rest of the universe in a field still exist even though there would be no one to perceive its existence?" Interesting isn't it?

I do think that the question, by itself is redundant because the act of posing the question acknowledges the cow's existence!

Then again, one would shrug off my argument and go into the deeper recesses that the question throws open. It all depends on perception. I believe that the man (or woman - I tend to distance myself from even remotely sexist terms) who could successfully unify his Perception, with his vision, would be the symbol of human perfection. Then again... his perfection would have to be acknowledged by everyone else, if he were to be truly perfect in every sense of the word. That can only mean we would have to distance our perception from the feelings of envy we might feel towards him, to acknowledge his perfection. Effectively, it's only the perfect who could recognize the perfect!