What Matters

I have been hearing this little saying more and more for the last couple of years- "Perception is reality." In fact, my last blog post I spoke of an incident at work where I was falsely accused of something. When it was all being tried out at the time of the alleged incident, I tried to explain what I saw was happening and how all of this stuff was completely untrue. I was flatly quoted, by a person in very high position, "well, this is what this person feels happened, and you know perception is reality." My reality was summarily dismissed and a lunatic's perception ruled the day.

Not to bring that up as re-hash, although to be frank I'm not quite over it, it seems to be just another symptom of a larger issue. While I gave up reading the New York Times some time ago, I ran across this opinion piece when scanning a news feed I have set up. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/opinion/20rich.html

You're reading this, so you can read that. I'll not go over the whole thing in boring detail, but this piece hit home with me. I don't think the Tiger Woods thing or any of the other stuff have really redefined us culturally. I do think we have redefined ourselves culturally, however.

This culture we live in seems to be defined by what we perceive. Moreover, what we perceive are the things we wish to be rather than the things that are. I'm not terribly sure where this comes from; is it because idealists have aged and come to power, and while those idealists now realize life is less than ideal, they can't cope with the idea so they ask us to live a falsified existence to mask reality? Is it that we prefer fantasy to reality? Maybe we've just gotten dumb. I don't know.

It's a strange role reversal. In the Wizard of Oz, one cautionary part of the tale tells us we should look out for those that would prove devious. Today we don't seem to do that, we actually strive to be the man behind the curtain. We want to not be payed attention to, only letting others see our characters, not our character.

Back in the 1990's there was a term commonly used by my peers. People my age would often say they were "just keepin' it real'. To be honest I hated that phrase, I still do; but I get the meaning behind it. I guess coming of age during that time, middle school, high school, and college, I took that to heart. Perception was nothing, really get down in the dirt with someone. Know who they are, what they're about, why they do what they do; only then can you really know a person.

So I guess it's cynical, but I just don't have a great deal of faith that anything anyone tells me is true. I don't see that anyone has any interest in anything but themselves anymore. I still need to get in and get in beside someone to build the kind of relationship that puts its faith in one another. The hard part is doing that in a time that seems to devalue reality in favor of making itself look better than it really is.

My challenge to you, the faithful few that read this, is to 'get real' with someone. Sure, I hate that term, but it's the best I can do. Maybe this is idealistic as well, but if a few of us go somewhere uncomfortable, confide in someone, act as ourselves to someone, show someone our personality warts-and-all, tell someone the truth instead of what they want to hear; maybe we can start making a difference. Maybe we can start taking our culture away from perception and start yanking some guys out from behind the curtains.

Just a thought.

-Andy