PERCEPTION

Having laid to rest the aspect of perspective, I want to bring the issue of perception to your perspective. Albeit a little different, perception has to do with your ability to see or the vision you have when you look. I believe you know by now that is not every one looking sees, so it is very logical to bring back the illustration of the creative arts class work for us here.

The whole class was made to look at a particular student so as to give a representation of what their perception can be from that perspective, it will amaze you to know that two students sat in the same position but did not draw the same thing. One saw a leaf right at the feet of the subject while the other did not, the same person saw the trunk and roots of three in a far distance yet decided to capture it while his colleague did not see anything. So you can look at the same object with someone, from the same perspective but still have a different perception about that same thing. 

I will like to take us back to the story of the two Hebrew boys that gave Israel the confidence to go and conquer Canaan (Joshua and Caleb). Twelve men were sent on a mission, so it will be safe to say they were placed in the same angle so they have same perspective but when they came to give their reports, the perception of the ten was entirely different from that of these two young chaps. Now from that alone, I understood that people can come together and form a consensus as to what perception they want to have because I believe they must have had a mini congress to decide what they want to say, how to say it and who to take the lead. They may have had different perceptions but because they have a report to give, they want to speak with one voice as a team so they decided to adopt a perception with the hope of spreading that to the entire nation. I can bet you that not all the ten shared or agreed with that particular perception but because they don't want to feel like "outsiders/sell-outs" they decided to play along.

Picture Joshua and Caleb giving their own perception (probably after their own micro conference) which contradicted what the remaining said. I can imagine the entire nation confused or mocking the two. Moses may have called a "Israel National Confab" to iron out the two perceptions and the outcome of the "confab" made them adopt the less realistic perception as the way forward.

What am I trying to say? You can never share the same perception as the person you share the same perspective with, and when it comes to reporting from your perspectives (after your mini conference), like it or not individual perception play a key role and only one person's perception will be adopted. To go ahead or not. Big or Small.

Now, your perception may be of a bigger, detailed and broader future and naturally you are a pacesetter, goal getter and achiever but by affiliation you remain in a smaller future because of the adopted perception of the group, so you end up not going as far as your vision because of those around you. Group perception may make or mar you too. Beware of what I term "Group Vision".

Whatever the case, it all depends on your perception, if you see large, you paint large, you see tiny, you paint tiny. You cannot paint what you've not envisioned, what you have not painted, you cannot follow and a path you've not followed remains a closed road forever. As Pablo Picasso puts it "everything you can imagine is real" 

Photo Credit: Google Images