Now This Is Complicated!

There are many times in life that perception is not reality. A great example is if a fellow has on a red shirt, now when asked you'd say that the shirt is red; that's your perception. But in reality the shirt isn't really red! We know this because if you take that shirt thirty feet under water, it now appears brown. So the shirt wasn't actually red, it was exhibiting the red in the white light spectrum it was exposed to, and that can be subject to change determined by the light that hits it.


So what is the reality of the shirt? Well we know it's made of material and has been cut and sewn to a particular pattern, this is fact not subject to conditions. Those points will never change. This is the substance of the shirt, a real quality. The color we perceived was a secondary quality added by what our mind perceived.

So what has this to do with anything? Well like color, so to is the perception of beauty. Beauty is not a fact, but an opinion. To quote the famous saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is spot on accurate. I may hold a different opinion because of my perception of an event or a thing, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. It makes it how the essence of that subject related to me.

So many times we have discussions with others and their perceptions differ from ours. They are reflecting how the essence of the topic relates to them, and often times what they perceive to be true is a conclusion arrived at through experiences totally different than ours. They saw the shirt as brown because of different circumstances, while we know that when we saw it, it was red! Both are right. We just had different experiences.

We have to understand that because we cannot possibly experience everything, our conclusions, ergo maybe tainted by our lack of experience. We determine our conclusions by repetitive experiences. This is why science is a theory, and people watching the same event arrive at different outcomes. We are limited by what we deem to be true based upon our induction of phenomena.

So if you feel the need to be right mandatory, you have to experience everything you can, and participate with eyes wide open. The induction of phenomena is the key to vast experience and valid opinions. In other words, GET OFF THE COUCH AND GO EXPERIENCE LIFE!

God Bless!
Capt. Bill