Padriag
Posts: 2633
Joined: 3/30/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: thegreymistress
This is my first thread and I wanted to ask everyone how they feel perceptions shape their world and themselves as people, as a label, as a society, culture or whatever else the people out here use to identify themselves and how perceptions fit in to that. I define perception as a point of view. Basically, am looking for whatever perceptions those around are willing to share and how the perception was formed in their opinion. Thank You all for your time in this.....
I actually wrote a thesis on this very topic... but don't worry I'm not going to repost it!
The short version is this... your perceptions ultimately control who you are. The common belief is that your experience shape you, but that's not quite accurate. Its actually your perception of those experiences. That's why two people can have the same experience but react differently, their perceptions differed. A simple example... someone with a high pain tolerance would have a very different perception (and thus a different experience and reaction) about being caned than someone with a low pain tolerance. All our experiences are similarly shaped by our perceptions, the foods we like, the friends we choose, etc. As we grow older we add to that not just our physical perceptions (our five senses) but our abstract perceptions, our opinions, beliefs and attitudes; all of which are based on associations with past perceptions and experiences. Thus our perceptions control not only how we experience things now, but also how we will experience things in the future because it creates a bias towards a particular reaction (which is sometimes a good thing, its why you don't keep sticking your hand on a hot stove... past perception of that experience has taught you that it is... which influences your future behavior).
We are what we perceive... literally. Which reminds me of something Anais Nin wrote, "We don't see people as they are; we see them as we are." There's a grain of truth to that.
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Padriag
A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel so that it may be very kind - Edmund Spencer
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RE: perceptions - 
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