Conceive Before You Perceive

It has been quite some time that this incident took place. So, basically, it will not be wrong to begin this blog with the classic ‘Once Upon A Time’ starter. But then that would be a bit exaggerating. And moreover, it’s pretty much clear that you are not here to read some classic kids’ literature; so, let’s avoid doing that ‘Once Upon A Time’ thing to this blog and try to stick to our new age story telling traits. There are, however, some key points that you must keep in your mind before you go on reading any further:-

1. This blog does have some ‘break-up’ angle to it, but that doesn’t make it a classic confession.
2. Now that you have read the word ‘break-up’, you might find yourself looking forward to learning some ‘moving on’ tips.
3. If you are indeed looking forward to learning some of those ‘moving on’ tips, then this blog is definitely not for you.

That’s all of the key points you need to take care of. So, if you still find yourself reading this blog, there is a great chance that you will find something interesting in here.

Getting back to the story, there was this small park nearby the place that I used to reside a few years back. Despite the fact that it was more or less crowded at almost every hour of the day, it used to be my refuge. And despite all the people chattering and gossiping and laughing at absurd stories from their work, I always managed to walk or sit alone and enjoy a few priceless moments of solitude. It was the place where I would often go for a walk daily, especially after dinner to get rid of my tiresome and monotonous routine.

That night was different though. I were not alone and definitely was not enjoying the moments of solitude. I was rather wandering along with one of my friends in a pursuit to counsel or say convince him out of the blues which he thought was depression and was immersing himself into, the reason being a break up with his girlfriend lately. We were walking on and through the pavement constructed throughout the inner circumference of the park, passing by the laid down benches and planted trees. There was, however, a particular tree that stood tall in the approximate center of the park surrounded by several other smaller trees and four lights, each placed at one corner of the park, focusing their lights over this large tree. We walked past this tree for almost the tenth time as this thought hit my mind. And mind it; that was no ordinary thought which may occur to one as an after effect of having comfort food for dinner or after a bad argument with a loved one. On the contrary, this particular thought was meant to help me make that friend of mine understand a very crude but true concept of life. But most importantly, it played a far more crucial role for me to grasp a proper understanding of myself and my surroundings changing my entire PERCEPTION.

Speaking of which, you ought to have a deeper insight of this particular word, ‘PERCEPTION’ before we could move on to what happened next during that walk in the park. So, tell me what do you conceive when you stumble upon this peculiar word? Do you consider it to be one of those high profile term in the entire English language that we often come across, baffling and blurring our simple concepts of truth? Or, is this something that shapes our view point of the world in this specific time and space reality? I find the word PERCEPTION to be both, deluding and enlightening. This one word is so powerful that it gives us our hint of height and depth, light and dark, up close and far. To be precise it helps us understand every single aspect of the physical reality of this timeline that shapes our very world. This word is so powerful that it made the entire human race live with a belief in the earth being a flat plane and with the fear that anyone who goes too far into the oceans may fall to the infinity. And our ancestors lived in this fear for far too long until one day the practical demonstration of the earth’s sphericity was achieved by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano’s expedition’s Circumnavigation. This expedition which was carried out in between 1519-1522 changed the PERCEPTION of the entire world. And a lot of such changes in the PERCEPTION have been achieved pre and post that expedition. Another example of such change in PERCEPTION is the discovery of the gravitational force by Sir Isaac Newton after an apple fell on his head. Now, if you think about both of these examples, you will notice that that the real facts existed long before they could be recognized. The earth has always been spherical and the gravitational force has been active ever since the beginning of the universe. As a matter of fact, neither of these two facts were manifested into reality after they were believed to be true by the humans but by believing in them humanity did acquire many great achievements. And PERCEPTION played the most important part in all of that.

It is notably odd that we live in this perfect world of dichotomic events and still approach towards every problem, every argument of ours in a complete monotony. Simply putting, we believe that for one thing to be correct, there exists a counterpart which ought to be incorrect; for one thing, to be true the other one opposing it must be false or else the entire situation becomes nonexistent. If that belief were to be true, then how come exist a form of energy we refer to as LIGHT which exhibits both the properties of a ‘particle’ and a ‘wave’. Even the belief of our physical form being one sole unit is not true. There are at least zillions (if not more) of cells inside us which perform freely and have their own intelligence. But, above all, every single one of these individual cells has their very own existence. So, by our standards of judging if a situation is true or not, the fact that we perform all by ourselves must be a delusion which we very well know isn’t. Now, how do you frame that? Isn’t even this a proof of perfect dichotomy? See, all I am trying to say is that nothing matters to us as much as our PERCEPTION of reality.

Now, as you have been through a lot of complex stuff and juggled your mind in between what is real and what is just a PERCEPTION, let me take you back to that night of my wandering in the park with my depressed (according to him) friend. So, this is exactly what happened. As I have already told you, there was this large tree with four lights focusing on it form four different angles. The focused lights coming from the four different directions created four shadows of the tree on the ground, each one pointing towards a different direction. Now keeping our monotonous approach in mind, it is impossible for an object to have four different sets of shadows all at once, without actually changing its position ever. The answer is simple and known to all. The park had four halogen lights focused towards the center, which gave out the tree its four shadows.

Confusing, is it? How can an insignificant tree with some shadows clarify our confusion over the significant concept of PERCEPTION? Well, it is same as a group of four blind people giving their reviews just by touching a part of a huge elephant. PERCEPTION is nothing but the approach of our mind towards a person/situation from various viewpoints. The harsh reality is that developing a part of the entire fact as a simple PERCEPTION is as good as developing a misconception. Even worse, we do this all the time. We see a man with a deep scar on his face and perceive him to be a sinner without even considering the fact that he got the scar while saving a little child from an accident. We meet a guy who is not so out spoken and perceive him being dumb and stupid without even considering the fact that this same guy prefers to relish his own thoughts as he rarely finds someone with as good intellect as himself. We have to understand that our PERCEPTION towards others is what is shaping our world. And it has not been doing any good to any of us. So, the simple solution is to conceive before you may perceive.

We all seek to have a glimpse of that positive change occurring in our world and yet, we are all afraid to change our PERCEPTION. So, what do you need to do in order to change your PERCEPTION? It’s simple, all you need to do is to broaden your conception. And how do you do that? You follow these simple steps:-

• Before believing anyone or anything, figure out if you are being told the complete truth.
  Just like the blind men trying to figure out how an elephant looks by only touching a small part of its huge body, you will never be able to understand a person/situation/object by only considering a part of its persona. Be careful not to develop any partial PERCEPTION because it will only be as good as a misconception. So, once you get convinced that you are not being told the entire fact, try and find out the complete truth.
• Distinguish between a temporary fact and a permanent one.
  The existence of the CRT monitors for computers was a fact during the late 90’s however for someone who considered that fact to be a permanent one has been proved wrong as the LCD and LED monitors came into existence. Perceiving a temporary fact for a permanent one doesn’t do you much harm except for the fact that it takes away your creativity and the willingness to outgrow your current situation.
• Do not let a fact hamper your belief if it does not do any good to you.
  Sometimes, perceiving even the truest of facts can be endangering especially if that kind of perception limits and binds your spirit. Think of a person who is suffering from an incurable disease and yet living a normal life until one day that person is confronted by the fact that he/she has only two more months left to live. In most of such cases, the person who confronts this news of his/her own death after 60 days would be left traumatized and would torment himself/herself only thinking about the after effects of his/her death on the loved ones or by regretting that his/her life could have been much better.

See, I know that I might have been too exaggerating while romanticizing the aforementioned examples but what I have been really trying to say is that PERCEPTION is an extremely powerful tool that could either provoke mass destruction or encourage new way of life, it could either help you to sink into the immense depths of depression or rise above the hurdles and bloom into a better person. The choice of what to perceive has always been yours and it will continue to be so. Just try to conceive before you may perceive anything and you shall lead a life of extreme mental peace and contentedness.