I read several other blogs with some regularity (or as much as my easily distracted
hamster brain allows) and I am always amazed what interesting lives other people lead. Maybe I'm just uninteresting or maybe I have some sort of verbal constipation that prevents me from being able to describe the events in my life in an extraordinary manner. Either way, I'm terrible about blogging regularly.
Strange, rambling point made, I set off here to blog about the
inaccuracies of
perception. For example, sometimes our brains misconstrue what our eyes tell us. Once, while riding in the car with Murray I spotted a large dead animal by the side of the road. Despite the fact that it was clearly a deer, my brain issued this question: "Kangaroo?" Some people would keep such a bizarre thought to themselves, but being me I
immediately shared it with Murray. He, being kind and loving and supportive, looked at me like he was relieved I had finally realized how completely insane I really am and hoped I would now seek immediate help.
There are, of course, more serious form of false-
perception. Eye-witnesses in court are often
unreliable as two people witnessing the same event can take away two completely different sets of memories from that event. In college psychology I learned that this is because our
precept ions are colored by a set of
pre-conceptions.
Apparently my personal set of
pre-conceptions include the habitation of kangaroos in central Arkansas.
The thing about all this
perception and misconception is, often we don't really SEE the events happening around us. Not to get on my oft-used soap box, but whether or not global warming
exists was a terrific example. On one side you had scientists, Al Gore, environmentalists, and the dwindling
snow pack on Mt.
Kilimanjaro and on the other side you had the Bush administration, big oil, and the U.S. auto
industry. Sure, it seems like Bush and the auto makers have come around but there are still people who think that pollution isn't harmful to the environment. Crazy...at least from my
perception.
