Wednesday Philosophizing

One of the books we’re reading in grad school right now is called, Love and Logic: Teaching in the Classroom. We read a chapter last night that dealt with perceptions— addressing our perceptions as teachers and also examining the perceptions that students may be coming in with. The book made the statement that there are essentially as many “world views” as there are people in it—that we form our perceptions based off our own unique life experiences, and those perceptions influence literally everything we take in, think about, process, and respond to.

So: Being the loser in 5th grade makes me empathize with 5th grade losers.

Reading storybooks with my Grandma in a mountain cabin in front of a fire made me love storybooks.

Having my parents build me up and tell me that I could do anything made me confident as a student, and encouraged me to give school a banner effort.

Climbing trees in my backyard with my siblings as a kid makes climbing trees as a 24-year-old feel safe and reassuring.

Etcetera.

This is why “the first cut is the deepest,” as Cat Stevens first pointed out. When people fall in love for the first time, their frame of reference-- their “field of understanding”-- does not yet include the vocabulary to articulate heartbreak, so they give their hearts over unreservedly. At least, I did. If and when that relationship ends… A person’s field of understanding has suddenly, brutally, expanded. Their perception of relationships and the opposite sex is suddenly influenced by this new wrenching experience. Going forward, you find those with perceptions influenced by one too many heartbreaks… And perceptions get jaded. Maybe cynical.

This is why Israelis and Palestines continue to fight, maybe. They have only grown up on their own side, and have only experienced a life where persecution came from the other side. Their separate perceptions do not harbor objectivity in the same way that a child growing up in Nebraska cannot harbor an idea of what the ocean looks like.

When Heidi and I were in Cork, Ireland, we ate breakfast in our hostel common room one morning, and there was a cartoon playing on the TV. The sound was off, but I was able to follow the story. There was an Evil Dude and, for some reason, he was bent on spreading hatred and discord. Evil Dude brainwashed a middle-aged-dad-looking-Home-Dude and turned him into an Evil Cupid. Dad-Looking-Home-Dude/Evil Cupid then flew around and shot arrows at people. Once hit with an arrow, the victim vehemently hated the next person he or she set eyes on, and the world started erupting in fights and road rage and arguments. When a person was hit with an arrow, the hit person’s eyes turned black. Their hearts turned off. They became cruel.

In one case, a handsome guy that had been previously depicted as very vain got hit with an arrow, and the next thing he saw was his face in a mirror. His eyes turned black, and he was suddenly horrified with his own appearance. He remained just as handsome, but he hated himself—he cringed in humiliation and embarrassment, and wore a paper bag over his head. He tried shaving off his hair, and just descended further into cringing self-loathing.

It was a scary cartoon.

Heidi and I left the hostel common room just as things were starting to turn around, so I know there was some remedy, some happy ending to the story… But the familiarity of those blackened eyes remained with me. We view the world, sometimes, through these blackened eyes. And what’s concerning is that, if our perceptions are being filtered through those eyes, we’re never going to be able to see anything that could change the black to a gentler color. Our world becomes warped through marred perception.

If we indulge in self-loathing, it’s hard to imagine how we could ever find ourselves valuable.

If we are “blinded by love,” we can’t imagine the possibility of fault in the object of our affection.

If we become jaded, it’s hard to imagine hope.

Our perceptions become our world—even if our world is completely different from the objective truth. Like Plato’s cave, if we’ve only ever seen shadows on the wall, we will never understand the concept of dancing bodies behind us.

I don't want to live in a warped universe. I need friends who will call me out, and re-inform my perceptions. I need, as a teacher, to make sure I understand the shape of my students’ worlds before I try to influence it with my own. I need to talk with people that have different opinions than me, and read books that volunteer ideas clashing with my own. I need to travel, and encounter perceptions that have been informed by completely different life experiences and cultures. I need to pray for eyes that see clearly. I need to pray for protection for my heart.

And, I think I could maybe use a good tree climb too. See the world from just a bit higher up.