What Do You See & Hear?
Hey there readers! I just realized that it’s been almost 6 months since I last posted on Medium! Man, how time flies! I never intended to take such a long break, but due to some reasons, I haven’t been able to devote as much time to my writing as I’d like.
Anyway, back to regular programming...
So, a few months ago, if you had been alive (meaning you had used Facebook or any other social media platform), you must have heard about the “Laurel vs Yanni” debate. It was all over the web, but in case you missed it, here’s the gist: There’s an audio recording of someone saying a name, and you must decide whether that name is “Laurel” or “Yanni”.
(The player in the linked post starts on mute. So, remember to turn up the volume if you don’t hear anything.)
Sounds simple, right? And it is. Until you ask a few other people. And then all hell breaks loose! People just can’t agree on what it is that they are hearing.
And while explanations are being put forth about why some people “clearly” hear “Laurel”, while some hear “Yanni”, this kind of thing is not new.
A few years back, the world was divided on the color of a dress. Or, of “the dress”, as it came to be known. Some saw it as white and gold, while others saw it as black and blue. In case you missed that craziness earlier, you must stop everything right now! Go take a look at the picture, and decide what color it is. Now!! And then ask others around you what they think the color is. It’s so fun arguing over something like this! :D
Everyone is so convinced about the color that they see, that it seems ridiculous when somebody says it’s a different one. Even now, knowing that the dress was originally black and blue, I still can’t see how it can be so. It’s clearly gold and white! Maybe those saying that the dress is black and blue are part of a worldwide conspiracy to drive the sane amongst us insane. ;)
Anyway, the point is:
We don’t always see things as they are, but as we are.
Even though I may be absolutely convinced of what it is that I’m seeing or hearing, it may well be far from the truth.
In the above two examples, I’m limited by the way my brain is wired, and there’s nothing I can do about it. If I see the dress as gold and white, that’s how I will always see it. Even after knowing that it’s black and blue, I can’t see it that way.
But there’s another factor that also affects my perception of my surroundings. And being aware about that may allow me some control over how much of an effect it can have. And that factor is: my life experiences.
Here’s a very simple example about how that affects what I see and hear: Being an experienced software developer, when I hear a word like “architecture”, the first things that come to my mind are totally different than what a historian or civil engineer might think upon hearing the same word. Similarly, other words words like “interfacing” and “integration” have a different connotation for me than they would for someone else.
In fact, here’s a live example of just this — I googled “interfacing” just now as I’m writing this, and it turns out it’s a term used in the textile industry! Even after having carefully thought about the word and what it might mean in a non-IT context, I was expecting something related to hospitality or relationship management to come up. But textiles?! Not in a million years would have I guessed that. But perhaps in a different life…
And it’s not just about my profession. It’s about any and all of my life experiences. All of them combined have made me the person I’m right now. They are my eyes and ears. What I see and hear is filtered through them.
It might seem like an inconsequential thing — after all, why does it matter what I think about when I hear “architecture”? But that’s just one example. Things start to matter, and matter big, when we let our life history color our view of the words, without first reflecting about the context in which those words were said — who said them, when and why.
Here’s an example: In the workplace, one manager, say Tom, might say to another manager, Dick, that some employee, Harry, is “unreliable”. What Tom meant was simply that Harry is tardy — he doesn’t arrive on time, doesn’t meet deadlines, etc.
But Dick, based on his earlier experiences, might interpret “unreliable” as implying that Harry can not be trusted to keep secrets, or is not loyal, or may indulge in back-biting, etc. There’s a subtle, but significant, difference in how Harry will be judged based on who associates what meaning to the words used to describe him.
Similarly, somebody might say, “Immigrants change our culture”. Now, different people may attribute different meanings to the word “change”. Somebody might see “change” as the complete destruction of the current state, which is then replaced by a totally new and different one.
But somebody else might see “change” as a gradual and natural evolution of the current state into the next one, that may or may not be better. Again, same words, but they will invoke different feelings and passions in different individuals.
As would, hopefully, be clear from the above examples, how we perceive the world around us, and those in it, is usually not driven by cold hard facts. It’s mostly a very personalized view, that may or may not be an accurate reflection of the situation.
I think one of the main factors behind the negativity and divisiveness we see in the world today is that, bombarded by the 24x7x365 media throwing words at us from every direction and screen, and without the proper time to process those words, we’ve become a lot more reactive than reflective.
I know it would be practically impossible to reflect deeply on each and every word, from each and every source, each and every time, but it would do us good to at least keep the awareness of this fact in mind, especially when dealing with those cases that arouse the greatest passions within us.
A reactive cycle is a downward spiral.
