Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where twelve of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by yours truly. The ten other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Magpie, Maria SF, ocdwriter, Padmum, Paul, Rohit, The Old Fossil and Will. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!
Stop Press. It is just possible that we may get another blogger to become a member of the consortium with today’s posts. If that happens, I shall introduce him by revising the above list online later.
I have just done that. Please visit The Old Fossil. I call him TOF.
“There’s an apocryphal story about Bihar, a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India that for decades held the dubious honour of being the most violent, poverty-stricken and corrupt in the land.
A Japanese minister visiting in the 1990s, shocked at the decrepit buildings, the darkness at night even in the centre of town and the crumbling roads, declared that it was all solvable.
“Give me three years,” he told a state leader, “and I can turn Bihar into Japan.”
“That’s nothing,” came the laconic reply from his host. “Give me three days and I will turn Japan into Bihar.”
~ Press Report.
It is all a matter of perception.
Loneliness / Solitude
Arrogant / Self confident
Door mat / Humble
Talkative / Good communicator
Stupid / Innocent
Opinionated / Informed
Rigid / Principled
Stickler / Disciplined
Bigoted / Religious
And so on and so forth. One person’s point of view can be perceived totally differently by another.
When I had suggested this topic, I was battling with negative perceptions of my then condition of relative immobility. When I look back I laugh at that condition. So perceptions can change with time too.
My 94 year old father perceives me as a child but often reverts to childish behaviour
when I have to behave like a parent with him. The same equation takes place between me and my son. So adjustments to behaviour also can be determined by perceptions.
Aesthetics could also be a matter of perception. Just look at the following two pictures;
The top picture is an RCC cover for man-holes in India and the bottom one is one from Japan. For Indians, apart from the fact that a metal man-hole cover would be swiped to sell off as scrap metal, it should be functional more than visually appealing, whereas the Japanese would like to beautify the mundane. We could look at both from different perceptives and call the former culture ugly and the latter, sensitive, but would that be really descriptive?
So, since perceptions are usually based on value systems that we are conditioned with, I try and avoid making any negative conclusions. Not always successfully, but try I certainly do.
How about you?