Posts Tagged ‘Perceptions’
Why Not?
Is it the big stuff, or the little stuff, or the more obvious combination of the both of them that deserves our attention at every given moment of each and every day? There isn’t always big stuff happening and sometimes there isn’t even any small stuff. But then someone’s house burns to the ground and they lose everything. Next thing you know, someone feels emotionally injured by the way another person spoke to them. Big, and little. Sometimes we pay attention, and sometimes we don’t.
Regardless of what happens, big or small, we look out at it all from inside ourselves and measure it against our own relative perspective. Imagine if we learned to do so with an attitude of awareness that, that is what we were doing, and did so from the spiritual center of our being.
We alter everything we observe, simply by observing it. Why not alter it for the better?
Relative Calm
In the flitter of fleeting moments that are passing lately, as storms the size of nations rage, both in relation to U.S. weather and to the citizens of Egypt, my immediate surroundings appear calm. It is such a stark contrast, yet in my moment, no contrast at all. The calmness here just is. My calmness stands alone, regardless cyclones in Australia or protests or blizzards.
But amid the calmness, closer inspection reveals there is a person not getting enough sleep at night. Someone was involved in a collision playing sports and temporarily dislocated his jaw. Someone’s work yesterday was particularly stressful. Ice dams are developing on the eaves again. Children are sick with a fever. A car was rear-ended on the way to work. To the people experiencing these things, it doesn’t seem calm at all.
There’s that relativity thing again. When we begin to feel overwhelmed by our own situation, it’s worth a shot to consider the more serious challenges other people are facing at the very same time. Sometimes, it helps. Sometimes, it doesn’t make our feeling of being overwhelmed change one damn bit, but it’s worth a try.
I’m glad my electrical power didn’t fail and I didn’t need to remove 2 feet of snow off my driveway yesterday. I only needed to remove 5 inches off of it on Monday. Now the state of my drive way is total calm. I noticed last night, with the temperature dropping below zero Fahrenheit, that my driveway was much more clean than when I shoveled it 2 days ago. The air is so dry and cold that the straggling amounts of snow that remain after shoveling, sublime directly from solid to vapor without melting to a liquid first. It would be fascinating to see a time-lapse video of that process, my driveway losing snow and getting cleaner all by itself.
Even amid the apparent calm, many different dramas are playing out in the flitter of fleeting moments.
Weather Again?
Whether or not you can stand to read another word about the weather, and regardless the fact I would gladly write about anything else today, weather continues to command all the attention.
Picking up the saga where I recently left off… You may recall I was rushing to get the roof cleaned off in time to take advantage of the impending melt and following rainfall. Since I was hustling to squeeze the task in the limited time available, I was forced to shortcut some of the clean up on the ground. I moved just enough of the snow that had been thrown down from the roof, to allow our cars out of the garage and to make a narrow path to our front door.
It all goes down hill from there. Yeah, the temperatures soared above freezing and then the rain came pouring down. After that, real Minnesota cold set in and temperatures dropped below zero Fahrenheit (-20°C).
While that meltdown should have been exactly what we needed for creating paths to drain any water caught behind the ice dams on the roof, I never imagined that it would cause me to need to call our insurance company for a completely different reason.
One of the giant icicles on the corner of the roof broke off and made a direct hit on our brand new air conditioner unit. It was installed in November, and we haven’t even had a chance to use it yet.
When the deep freeze set in, all that snow I shoveled from the roof, but didn’t get around to cleaning up, froze solid on the edge of the sidewalk and driveway. I don’t think I’ll be able to move it until spring.
In the early morning hours of darkness, when the temperatures dip to the lowest extremes, the remaining ice on the roof can fracture with a BOOM of a concussion. The other night, one such BOOM shook the house and woke both Cyndie and me. I heard a crash on the deck below, immediately following. I was sure that some giant chunk of our roof must have broken free and then smashed the deck.
When I checked in the morning, I couldn’t find anything that matched my perception of the sound we had heard. Closer inspection revealed several small pieces of ice on the deck beneath our bedroom. I think things tend to sound a lot worse than they really are, from deep under the covers of your bed, during the pre-dawn hours, in a bleary, just awakened adrenalin rush. I won’t be telling the insurance agent about this one.
As It Is
Regardless the best laid schemes of mice and men, each moment passes away into a void that holds the essence of everything that transpires. Even as we examine the collective memories of everyone who has them, from every possible angle, the reality of what was, is morphing in an uncontrollable mix with what is. Stopping is not really an option, since a moment exists in conjunction with immediate moments on either side of it, before and after. It is actually too hard to contemplate, even as we live it, each and every second.
If something is too hard to think about, we have a very simple solution. We don’t bother thinking about it. We talk about the weather, or the local sports team. In my town, the talk is all about the local NFL franchise, The Minnesota Vikings, and their current melodrama that came about as a result of the weather. We’ve got a two-for-one going on here!
At the day-job yesterday, I learned that some people feel embarrassed by the national and even international attention being paid to the collapsing roof on the team’s sports stadium. One individual reported feeling forlorn that the situation reflects badly on the people here. We have a domed stadium to be able to play despite the weather, yet the weather has the better of us anyway, ripping a few gaping holes in the fabric cover. The hosts of evening television talk shows are making jokes about the situation in their monologues.
Another aspect of the story is that the football team isn’t enjoying much success this year, far under-performing the expectations that existed at the start of the season. It provides plenty of fodder for tying together the theme of the failing team and the failing stadium roof. They are made for each other.
It is the 50th year of existence for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. As we celebrate the star players who performed their magic for us over the years, it also catches our attention that we have repeatedly failed to accomplish the ultimate goal of winning a championship Superbowl trophy. Yesterday, one of the local columnists wrote about the top 5 flops in team history.
It occurred to me that if a person were to closely identify with the team that represents their home state, and that team became known for their repeated failings, it could imprint that person’s self-image. It hits close to home for me. I was star-struck by the athletes on that team when I was young. My moods swung up and down with their successes and failures. I have never confidently believed in ultimately succeeding at anything. I have an underlying sense that whatever it is, I will most likely see things end up in a flop.
It developed over a period of time at a young age. It is a hard thing to eventually unlearn. Over time, I have gained new insight to why other folks seem to have an uncanny ability to believe they will succeed, regardless the odds. Either they are not from around here, or they never paid any attention to local sports growing up.
Privilege
Sometimes I find it hard not to frame everything about this great big complicated world, from my limited personal perspective. But hey, it’s only natural. I am what I am.
There are moments when I get a sense that everyone in the world is focused on the same hot topic, even though there are a great many people who have little, if any, exposure to events beyond their immediate physical space. Heck, there are people in my own community that don’t have the financial ability to have an internet connection in their home, even if they are lucky enough to own a computer.
At first, it struck me as rather odd to witness financially impoverished remote mountain people in Nepal making regular use of cell phones. There are surprises to be had with regard to the technology found in underdeveloped regions, as well as with people surrounded by the latest technical trappings, who can’t afford to participate.
Realize this, folks… those of us who log in to the internet on a regular basis are members of a privileged group of people in the world. There is value in not continually taking that for granted.
Complex and Simple
Comparing myself to others, I feel simple. And complex. It’s just human nature. It is not surprising at all to notice that there are people who blow me away for their depth of intellectual pursuits, political awareness, and social participation. At the same time, I notice that my level of activity appears to be dramatically more involved than plenty of other folks. Of course, it’s all relative. What I notice about thinking of these comparisons is that the contemplation of differences usually corresponds with thinking about the past or the future, and therefore, not the present moment. When I am fully focused on the here and now, I rarely find it to involve such comparison.
One of the things that has me feeling a sense of simpleness lately, is the regular pattern I traipse throughout our house. For the most part, I don’t go into the living room. Or the basement. I have a very consistent trail between our kitchen, the library, and my upstairs bedroom. Cyndie has made changes to rooms in our house that I haven’t discovered until months after the fact. I could get by living in a tent. Two or three rooms becomes a luxury. The good thing about this is I won’t be upset at all if I need to be moved into single room senior living situation someday.
For the variety of my interests that command attention, I have become a master of none. It hasn’t escaped my consideration that I might have achieved a much higher degree of proficiency in a number of my avocations, had I applied more focus and allotments of time. C’est la vie.
That’s just part of the simple complexity of me, you know? Aren’t we just the most interesting of creatures? Feel free to ponder your own contrasting traits today, in light of the idea we are at the same instant, both simple and complex.
Finding the willingness to accept the possibility of simultaneous existence of two opposing characteristics in ourselves, breeds great expansion of our understanding and insights about both our immediate world, and the greater expanse of souls on this planet. It’s a simple way of becoming much more comfortable with complexities of our lives.
It’s True
I’m beginning to think maybe life itself may actually be based on a true story. I woke up yesterday and found the weather was just like what the forecast had predicted. Everything that happens is just like what really happens. It’s impressive. It would make a great marketing campaign. “Life …Based on a True Story!”
It seems odd though, since we are all just made-up characters.
.
I am experiencing the weirdness of time perceptions again. The ‘long-ness’ and shortness of passing time. Both happen, simultaneously, and I am smack dab in the middle. I waited while Cyndie was having knee surgery and it was a classic moment of ‘killing time.’ Minutes, and then hours, pass by and I am static. When that phase ends, I move to being a companion in her recovery process. My normal activity is placed on hold. It was a long day.
Yet the day passed by very quickly. It seems like we just got up, and then we were home. A brief rest on the couch in the afternoon and suddenly we’re off to bed for the night.
It reminds me of my perception of having children. At first, they were around the house a lot and required frequent attention, and then not so much of either being around the house or needing attention. In the time it took me to bend down to put my socks on one morning, they were done with college and entering the work force.
The same things that seem to take a long time to pass, are also passing by very quickly. It’s true, even if it seems like I just made it up.
Perceptions Past and Future
There are times I feel that if I became aware there were 10 minutes left in my conscious existence, I could sit in one place and allow the final seconds to pass without even realizing it. I find it interesting that having such a thought doesn’t awaken the least bit of inspiration to act toward altering the likelihood of such an outcome.
Meanwhile, looking at past evidence of how many times I haven’t failed to act on life situations tells me my perception and actually reality are not entirely aligned.
There’s always the future to consider. The following is an excerpt I wrote for a nonsense item of silliness where each post begins with the words, “In the future…”
In the future, when people’s opinions about themselves happen to approach an order of magnitude either above or below the opinions held about them by their immediate audience, the tiniest hairs on the backs of their main sensory processing lobes will warn them that if they continue to remain oblivious to the obvious evidence bouncing back at them from said audience, the good judgment of the incredibly reasonable people of the world, which as luck will have it – will have combined into a free-floating cloud of goodness that roams the planet as an incredibly helpful resource for just these kinds of situations, will strike in a lightning-like bolt of insight that stings like the dickens up and down the spine, and the inside of the eyelids will appear a blazingly brilliant, almost florescent pink on each blink. It will be great for those who have already mastered command of detecting their standing at any given time or situation.
Fresh Perspective
It is such a plus to maintain an openness to new perspectives. Whatever the human inclination is that drives us to become closed-minded about the world we inhabit, we sacrifice a richness of experience when we allow limitations of thought to constrain us.
There are so many things that I don’t know about computing and navigating the cutting edge of technology, but that my son has knowledge and experience with. I learn something every time I watch him in action.
One vivid example that comes to mind is when I first got my MacBook Pro with its trackpad that featured two finger scroll navigation. Julian asked me why I wasn’t using the two finger scroll. Quite frankly, it was because I had never needed it before to navigate. I was using the new computer the same way I had navigated on my previous computer. It worked just fine., …until I was exposed to the convenient two finger scroll. With Julian’s simple query, I was prompted to give it a try, and I was immediately hooked by two finger scrolling.
Now I feel severely handicapped when I find myself computing on a machine that doesn’t have this feature to offer. Thank you, Julian, for continuing to enlighten me about everything you discover, especially since I only seem to retain a fraction of what you offer. I always consider myself in debt to you for the nudge, questioning me about my not taking full advantage of that trackpad.
Last night I enjoyed the pleasure of hanging out with 3 of my siblings at an impromptu pizza party –no, it wasn’t Brianno’s, they are closed on Mondays– and we did some computing on my sister’s laptop. Twice, Judy noticed something I did that was new to her. (Don’t forget, hold down the “alt” key and then press “tab” to navigate among the windows or applications that you have open concurrently.) Was she apathetic about the different ways I navigate? No! She became excited to see a new way to use her computer. What a wonderful thing it is to practice an open mind.
I experienced another new perspective yesterday, unrelated to computing. All the way back to when I was in about 9th grade in school and I decided I’d seen enough bad social behavior to never want to be a part of it anymore, I figured the trick I wanted to practice was, be the same person in every possible situation in life. I’ve tried to follow that guideline pretty much ever since, with varying levels of success. I’m not aware that I have managed to gain new insight when it wasn’t working out so well for me, but now I think I see some subtlety that I was overlooking before.
I read something about code switching that struck a chord with me. The term is used often in linguistics and refers to communicating in more than one language. In my case, it was making sense in more of a multi-cultural sense. Even if I desired to keep up a constant persona in all situations –as an attempt to diminish the opportunity for hypocrisy– it would not be right to communicate with others in the same way when I was at an informal event like a friendly party, as compared to a formal event like a funeral or legal hearing. My behavior and verbal communication will switch to a certain degree for different social situations.
The noble goal of always being the same person, no matter what, still involves mastering some level of nuance for best overall healthy participation with others. Between overhearing what I felt was some insensitive dialogue in a multi-cultural workplace and then my seeing the reference to code switching, I gained a fresh perspective on something I have tried to practice, but hadn’t been giving much thought toward for some time.
A couple of different examples of what I feel are both benefits of practicing an openness to new perspectives.
Rush Hour Bike Commuting
It is hard to describe the insight that comes from riding a bike to work during the hours when most people are driving to their workplace. I fear it is one of the things that needs to be experienced first-hand in order to truly comprehend. I also think it is key to already have been driving to your workplace for some time and to then bike that distance, preferably, multiple times.
First of all, there is the time difference in the duration of the trip. On a bike, you have time to notice a lot more things about the world between where you live and where you work. There is something about that fact which can really improve your perception the next time you climb back in that car to drive to work. It is hard to explain, but it broadens your perspective.
One less mysterious aspect of biking a route that you also drive is the new respect it provides for the terrain. Little changes in elevation that used to go entirely unnoticed will subsequently be intimately understood as you are gliding up inclines at the touch of the gas pedal.
When you are on a bike and moving at the slower pace of cycling, the manic pace of automobiles being driven by people rushing to get to work becomes dramatically apparent. There is an overt selfishness in every obsessive gesture to get around any car that is in front of a rushing driver. Their impatience emanates an incredibly annoying aura. They can also prove to be extremely dangerous to cyclists.
I am again reminded of the classic quote of comedian George Carlin: Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Have you ever noticed that drivers who label others as idiots and maniacs, demonstrate selfish behaviors in their rush to and from work? Relax. You’ll get there.
Relative Something 