Perception (isn’t everything…) (31/5/2023)

…and neither is intention. This will likely be a very free-ranging post with tangential rants/topics, and also an excuse to talk about triangulation.

This is not a post about psychedelic drugs… :-p

Starting point less of a direct remark this time, or not to me I think, just a tweet from someone who said ‘perception is everything’, something I immediately (not verbally) disagreed with. I’ll come back to perception in a bit, how it can fool us, how intention DOES matter (and more than perception in my opinion), but first address that ‘is everything’ bit. Because if perception is everything, then you leave the field to abusers. Or self-abusers. The world is narcissists’ oysters. Or other people with this or that personality disorder or serious mental impairments (and again, I am not there to judge, I speak from my own feelings and impressions (here I go, you think, he makes his perception everything…bear with me and you might see what I mean), my experience, other people’s experiences and a certain sense of… ‘common sense’. And what I see in this world is more and more interpretations). We slowly learn to ‘love oneself’, and yes even I have at last learnt to love myself more or better. But does it have to be at the expense of others? Does it has to be in exclusivity of loving anyone else? I don’t think so. Most people don’t think so, I would say. But there’s a tendency it seems to me these days, to promote self-love to excess, the war of genders, colours, religion, whatever. But if you feel the need to post something saying you love yourself more than ever, is that assertive? Or is that an expression of insecurity? I think I’m digressing already, but I think we’re being encouraged to narcissistic behaviours more than to fight back against ghosts who exist only in our heads. And it’s fine. As a transition, as a temporary state. If you feel you’ve been slighted, you need to fight back for yourself. Not sure you need to fight against anyone, not sure you need to express that much of self-love. But I guess it’s my rather introverted side and going about your business of improving as a person quietly. Yeah, it doesn’t matter, what matters is who we are, who we become. Anyway, back on topic(i.e. perception), I think I have to relate a few situations, a few moments where enlightenment came far too late. So for once, I will be less abstract. There was a situation in a pub when me and a friend where in a bad patch to each other (I won’t very much expand or try not to), but as I had to leave, and we were with a group of friends and I was aware of the tension between me and him (and still insecure about a lot more things at the time), when it came to say goodbye, shaking hands with the other people was natural, I didn’t have to think whether they wanted to or not, never considered who put their hand out first or not, so no idea. But when it came to him, I was just tentative, thinking, in my way too indecisive and passive way of the time ‘if he get his hand out, I’ll shake it, but if he doesn’t want to, I won’t be the first to make the effort’. And so we didn’t shake hands, and my perception was that he didn’t want it, so I felt slightly sad and crushed but that was it. More on the triangulation/triangulator later probably, but it came to him that I had related the situation this way to our (oh so wrongly) trusted person in the middle. So he had a go at me ‘why did you say lie and say that?’. I was gobsmacked and explained that I said that because it was the truth, and now that made me feel sorry about having been honest about it. To which he ranted about honesty and me not being it. There is a lot of background to it that I had no real idea about, but again, back to our genius triangulator I guess. Anyway, bottom line is that I never thought of this incident as a whole event to be seen from his own perspective until an enormous lot later, but I resolved to always hold out my hand first whenever I would meet him in the future in the pub. And I stuck to that.

I won’t write the book, there were a lot of uneasy situations or meeting up, but even when he seemed hostile, I always greeted him, even if we didn’t talk much. It took a lot more time to start repairing things, and my last encounter with him was quite enlightening, as only the two of us met in the pub that day, the pub was packed with youth, his health was very fragile (I didn’t know much about that, though I could see things weren’t quite fine), and he could see that there was no animosity from me, the opposite and that I was just there taking care of him in a relatively ‘hostile’ environment where people seemed to forget about respect (the innocence of youth? I’m not always that sure if it’s that or shit modern education that encouragers selfishness, me me me, and the worst forms of non-pathological narcissism (in my opinion….)). Anyway, his death meant we never met again, and it took me a further year and a bit to start opening my eyes to all that had happened. But I’ve already written on that a lot in another section, haven’t I? But back to perception, so I revisited the handshake event later, and it all became clear and obvious to me. Well I have already related my perception, his perception had been obviously different : to him, and it’s completely natural and normal in his own situation and with the tension between us, he saw me just shake hands with everyone but him. Now, maybe the person who departs is the one who holds their hand out. I’ve always been pretty tentative I guess (some people don’t shake hands and I hate to put my habits forwards if someone has different ones), but I saw that once I’d started with the first person, the others know I’m leaving so it’s indifferent. Anyway, I digress but my view is that his perception was absolutely legitimate. I’m not going to say more legitimate than mine, because we’re all different and I’m trying very hard these days to stop myself from blaming myself for everything that goes wrong while crediting others when it goes right. But the bottom line is that BOTH our perceptions were just that. And at the time or shortly after, we didn’t try to put ourself in the others’ shoes (and I admit mine may be more unusual….but it doesn’t mean I feel I always have to conform). So we were both wrong about each other. Nobody lied, we just didn’t listen to each other. So was he wrong? Of course he was. As was I. Our perception utterly fools us at times, and this modern trend to say we have to listen to only our perception is very dangerous. My view is we always have to understand it and be open. Open to other people’s perception.

But I can’t get round to the idea that ‘as soon as you feel you are a victim, then you are a victim’. Sure I hate the term anyway. Perhaps I shouldn’t refuse myself the right to call myself a victim of someone with NPD for instance, but no I feel I was just a target and that I learnt a lot and the intention to hurt was involuntary, borne out illness, and only came at the end of a process. And I share my part of guilt and mistakes. If only I’d known. Anyway, I digress, but yes, that other side (but completely related) topic: triangulation. Again, using the same-ish example, when I was once complaining about a friend’s reaction, I was told ‘but put yourself in his shoes’. Hmmm, yeah. That’s what I try (you can never truly be in someone else’s shoes, but you can try to alter your perspective and see from theirs with the objective elements you have in your possession) most of the time, a lot more than other or normal people. But the problem arises when there is a ‘person in the middle’ who handles all the information seemingly in confidence. Let’s say person B, completely trusted (because they have very subtly made themselves appear trustworthy and perceptive to an incredible extent) by person A and person C, and in a situation when person A and C barely talk to each other, or never at a deep or personal level. Then person B has all the liberty to say to A things about C, or to C things about A. If they are super clever, they might even be subtle enough to not lie (or not much anyway) but be super very partial in what they say and reveal. So if person A tries to put themselves in the shoes of person C, they might not realise that they have been given the shoes without the soles (hey, shit metaphors are my thing, though they have their limits, unlike my self-commentary…). You get the idea. But that’s one form of triangulation. Of course I am absolutely not talking at an abstract level, I am A, B and C are/were very real, and B triangulated shitloads of people. But hey, this has its limit with intelligent people too, genius sometimes forget their own limits and then they panic or get scared.

When I got out of this situation in all possible ways (pushed, but I was probably pushed because I was going away from the madness anyway), I decided to stick to being myself, the person I am, the one I want to be, despite the struggles and the pain and the fact that I will never be the most noticed/shouty person, and one new person rightly told me that normal people do check sources, they don’t take someone else’s world about a third person as gospel. Especially if they know you and are in touch with you. Seeeeeeeeeeeeee…I drifted away a lot in this article, proof that sometimes one reflection or event still make me things of all these years, the mistakes, the people and how I feel somehow lucky that I managed the way I did since. Imperfectly, but my own way, not seeing monsters everywhere, but slightly too aware of the possibilities of online manipulations, and recoiling at the first signs of control/manipulation. And we need to demystify all these things, especially in the days when a lot of traumatised people see ‘monsters everywhere’. And in the days when ‘narcissist!’ is an insult easily brandished, ignoring the possible medical implications.

But then yeah, my view is still that this ‘virtual’ society is putting us away from reality and intentions and into the realms of pure ‘perception’. And I’m afraid I think it’s a WRONG thing.

One last thing about triangulation (again, same….), if you want to control the communication between two people who trust you, a way is also to control only one person’s communication (the one you trust less? worry more about? need more? not sure, I won’t go into details). That was pure genius. It partly relied on me not asking much and feeling confident in that trust. Sure, I could have chosen to speak at the end. But I thought that was not worth it, and could destroy a lot more; sometimes the truth is worth knowing but not sharing (so what am I doing here? It’s not personal, cannot be deemed personal apart from to me, I hope, so I feel confident enough now after all this time). Also that would have been selfish in some way, and more trouble or lies could have been generated. So now I think I did the right thing at least on that.

Anyway, so a little back on topic, I’ve given you some of my examples, but look around you, your own life, communications (online or not, but online truly is the worst, there is no thing like perceiving things over the internet, it’s a mug’s game, and if you get things right, it’s often luck or because you know the person already and in some other ways). And it’s hard enough as it is in ‘real life’ too. After all, it’s so easy to be taken by someone’s charisma, them being convincing, etc. But does everyone care about other people’s good? No, there truly are people for whom life is just abusing or being abused. Let us not forget that a lot of abusers are people who have been abused themselves. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Sometimes I forget that there are people who are truly mean, I don’t understand that nature, but I know it exists, and all of these are not just people with mental disorders, in fact they are mostly not, as the ones with disorder do suffer a lot themselves. God, I’m writing so much shit, ain’t I? I am no psychiatrist etc., that’s why, but I have had a few direct experiences I guess.

So yeah, perception and (mis)communication. In your life, you will have noticed the mistakes happen all the times. Sometimes small and inconsequential incomprehensions, sometimes big, life-changing or damaging ones. And what can we do? In general, I try to be as precise as I can with words. But sometimes I’m too impatient for that, and I fail to focus. Also, so many times being as explicit as you can turns out not to be enough, you use one word rather than another for a very specific reason, but the other person fails to notice. Because their perception is different and kind of pre-established and they don’t pay attention or know you enough. And I’m as guilty as anyone, how many times have I only noticed the negative things because I was in a bad mood. Or only the positives because I was in a good mood. So it’s important not to be rash in your reactions. But again, I’m not going to say I never am, it would be obviously wrong. But yeah, perception often fucks us up, when we focus only on that. And we must not forget to ask (something I’m notoriously shit at, though I like to believe I’m improving). And listen. Assumption is the mother of all mistakes. It really is. And even our own experiences can fool us into labelling one person one way or another due to one bad experience, and these days everything has to be instant so we don’t always take the time to get to know each other. There’s too much information on the internet, so there’s too much misinformation too. And I should stop ranting (getting tangential again on triangulation I forgot above, I once spent a day with someone who at the end said ‘oh you’re really not that bad’, I was quite shocked wondering why they would have thought I wasn’t nice? Until I realised much later that that person was being triangulated by our dear friend. As was I, though I was so completely stupid to think person E was using and abusing person B when it was very subtly the opposite, however much it was to satisfy their own needs – so yeah, on that again, your needs first? Yes, but if it’s at the expense of others….no. Be kind, never with a string attached).

So on a lighter note about perception (but again how it fools us), once in a sticky-ish work situation, I had to perform a demo without a very well working system and having a very limited time to make it work, as things broke down ten minutes before the start. I was super stressed, got by, did everything kind of ok ish but in an internal panic/meltdown mode, and that feeling I was a bit bullshitting my way through (which I hate). But at the end of it, a colleague who was (remotely) in the meeting with me doing another part of the demo sent me a message saying something akin to ‘wow, that was impressive, you were very cool about it all’. Bit of a shock really, but again proving that even my own perception of myself or what I do or the way I say things can be, if not wrong (what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in this case? The way I feel, or the way you perceive me, if they differ? ( I’d say the way I feel is more right, now that I’ve stopped being defined only by people’s reaction), then at least completely different from what someone elses perceives.

And now I realise I haven’t even talked about ‘intention’. It matters. Enormously to me, as it’s the nature of what you need/want to express. But the reason it is not everything either is you have to take into account people’s perception. If someone is hurt and you had a good intention, do you have to feel guilty? Not sure. But it’s all right to apologise, try to understand and do better next time. But if the hurt people only see their hurt….it’s not right either. Sure, I’m staying on a purely mental point of view there, but the classic example is ‘killing someone by mistake’ (usually we talk of drivers?). It’s manslaughter but not murder, so you pay the price, you are ‘guilty’, possibly of neglicence. How does that all work in the ‘mental’ world now? It’s so hard to quantify/qualify isn’t it? Recently, I felt someone’s reaction was completely out of order. I can see a few ways they’d have got my intention/person wrong, so I tried to explain. It’ s not enough, and I’m very shit at accepting negativity from other people (on a temporary basis, I can, but when reactions are radical and selfish and without communication, I can’t…and yes, more than in most families, I think my family has suffered an anormous lot from ‘silence’. I’m rarely a very chatty person (unless I feel extremely well and happy, and then I tend to forget…)), and so I suffer when people are not able to express their feelings, emotions, wishes, etc. Sure MOST of life is implicit, doesn’t need words. Actions matter more, but I always try as hard as I can to keep my word, it seems to mean more to me than to most.

Was that too long? Yes. Does it suffer from a complete lack of structure and point? Quite probably. But I never pretended to do anything else than free-form in these pages that maybe very few or no-one will read (hey, I got a few more comments, since the link was put on facebook, and they are practically all bots or companies or people, real or fake, talking about blogs improvement/visibility/money-making/whatever, yeaaaaah, great! Bugger off…).

In the end, if even it triggers an inner reflection or two with just a handful of people, then I’m happy. And if it doesn’t even do that and it’s just a way for me to express myself before I disappear in the ether, it’s completely vain, but it doesn’t matter. To this day, I still can’t fully figure out whether life is all shit/vain/joyous/gorgeous or where humanity is going, never mind me. Possibilities are infinite, sure I’ve got hopes/wishes, etc. though it feels I have wasted so many years, because of the circtumstances of my own family and life, years that I can’t get back. But we’re all here together, I still hope to give many things, and keep learning how to take without demanding too much. Right, enough talking shit. Perception, it can fool you very badly, so always try to ask if you can, and if you can’t, then don’t assume you know. You still need to meet and feel people in real life, physically, and yet you might still get it wrong if you don’t give the time. And yes, I am an open book when you see me, emotions often showing on my face, and yet, there’s a depth that I never knew when I though I was just the vainest no-personality person in the world…..(that would make people who really know laugh…I just didn’ t know me, and still my perception is uncertain….there is no conclusion to this article).

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