My Perception of Knowledge and Perception

When I was younger, I used to sneak my copy of Mind Bending Optical Illusions into church for long services; it was small enough to hide, and could keep me occupied for hours. To me, it was pure magic how an image could make my eyes disagree with the rational part of my mind. I saw a figure before me, but I knew the figure could not exist. The question is: how did I know? What constitutes knowledge? Knowledge is information that is accepted as the truth. We live our lives by what we know: there are three hundred sixty five days in a year, fire burns flesh, one plus one is two. However, we rarely stop to think about how much of this knowledge is just perception. If knowledge is closer to an objective understanding of the world, then perception is a view of the world subjectively. It is information collected by the senses, and oftentimes it does not coincide with rational thought. I know that clouds are nothing but water droplets, but I still perceive them as being fluffy and soft. Our perceptions also stem from our personal desires, preferences, or predispositions. The same song that seems happy to an optimistic person, might make seem sad to a person who is depressed.
We live our lives by what we know: there are three hundred sixty five days in a year, fire is hot, the world is round. However, we rarely stop to think about how much of our “knowledge” is actually perception. After all, human kind once “knew” that the world is flat. The distinction between knowledge and perception is hazy. Knowledge is essentially a universally accepted perception, and thus we must have perception to have knowledge. However, it is not necessary to know in order to perceive because our perceptions do not depend on knowledge. I can see that my friend is upset before she tells me she is, much like I can tell that it is summer outside without looking at the calendar. We begin perceiving the world straight form the womb because part of human existence is a struggle to figure out the world.
Knowledge has become our way of evaluating our existing collective perceptions of the world; we remain on the quest to gain knowledge for the entirety of our lives. Taking knowledge from books or TV, for instance, can be dangerous because it forces us to trust the word of a complete stranger. How do we know a food critic’s review or a physicists’ formula is complimentary to how we would view it ourselves? However, collecting knowledge from books or TV is an excellent way to gain knowledge; hearing and thinking about other peoples’ perceptions of the world, provides the opportunity to discover something for ourselves with the guidance of people with experience. After all, knowledge originates from a perception compared and shared by a group of people.
The best way to know something is to explore it for oneself, while considering other peoples’ perceptions in the process.
Are optical illusions truly illusions? Who is to say those images from Mind Bending Optical Illusions can not exist in real life? What if it’s just our universal perception of the world that rooms cannot have two ceilings or that people cannot walk up one dimensional staircases. Even if pure, unbiased knowledge of the objective world is not possible, I do not mind. Individual perceptions keep the world interesting.

The Ladder to Self Knowledge

My first reaction to this assignment was rolling my eyes and heaving an over-dramatic sigh. I have come to associate the term “know thyself” with Disney movie morals like “beauty lies within” and “always believe in yourself”; they fit into a group once-powerful adages reduced to worn out clichés. However, now I realize my mistake. “Know thyself” is not simply a trite piece of advice, but a key part of the human experience. In fact, truly “knowing oneself” is one of the most notable achievements a person can accomplish.
Whether subconsciously or not, we constantly assess other people’s weaknesses, strengths, gifts, and shortcomings. Essentially, we judge others in attempts to “know” them, but rarely do we judge ourselves. This self-judgment would require us to ignore everyone else’s perceptions of us (as well as our own) and expose our own strengths and weaknesses. “Knowing oneself” is accepting our characteristics. That is to say, it is discovering our traits and flaws, and learning how to moderate them. When we “know ourselves” we are able to recognize when it is necessary to practice self-restraint, and how we can manipulate our strengths. Thus, with self knowledge we can attain personal balance, and eventually inner peace.
Over the course of about fifteen years, I have recognized that I think a lot. Of course I realize that everyone thinks, everyone is curious, and everyone spends time in reflection. However, my thinking leads me to the point of over-analyzing and obsessing. This total consumption of thought generates my greatest flaw: indecision. Not only is it the cause of my tendency to over pack, but I also blame it for my propensity to procrastinate, and for a majority of the anxiety I feel. I will spend hours or days vacillating between two options until someone or something chooses for me. I’ve found that I often wait until deadlines run out, or until my parents, completely frustrated, decide something for me. If I don’t have to make the final decision, I can avoid blaming myself for a disappointing outcome. I suppose it’s my fear of choosing wrong and, as a result, feeling regret that leaves me indecisive.
I know I’m in for a difficult period when it comes time for me to choose a college; I’m preparing myself a repeat of my third grade school dilemma. When I lived in East Haven, I was accepted to a magnet school that my sister already went to. Of course I was excited that I got in, and I understood it would be a great opportunity to expand my education. However, these rationalizations didn’t make deciding whether or not to go any easier. I was torn for weeks between leaving behind my friends and a place I was comfortable at for a completely new environment. My parents, set on letting me decide for myself, told me they would support whatever decision I made. It was clear, however, which school they favored when they offered to let me buy hot lunch three times a week and drive me in every morning if I chose the magnet school. Even with incentives, I put off my decision for weeks. In hindsight, I realize that I never really considered staying at my elementary school, but fear of regretting my decision crippled me from choosing for myself. Finally, the day before the deadline to decide, my parents signed me up for the magnet school.
To combat my indecisiveness, and subsequently make choosing my college easier, I have tried to think with better quality, and in less quantity. Instead of running over the same facts thirty times, I make pro-con lists. I try to stop cluttering my mind with “what-ifs” and instead think more of what I do know, and what my initial feelings were. Once I’ve made a decision, I try not to let myself talk myself out of it.
Although my thinking has caused me a lot of grief, it has helped me a great deal as well. I think my greatest strength is my ability to think rationally. Part of the reason I have trouble making decisions is because I think through each option I have and try to realistically assess what each means for me. When I’m in a difficult situation, I try to make up a course of action, instead of stewing on my misfortune.
Knowing oneself is difficult because it forces one to go against human nature. We human beings inherently have the sense to avoid pain; however, attaining self-knowledge requires a person to dive head first into it. Everyone has ugly qualities and characteristics that he is not proud of. Deciphering what these qualities are, and accepting the mistakes we tend to make because of them can be a painful process. However, only once we acknowledge our faults can we moderate them. Some people would rather live a life in denial, devoid of inner peace, than risk feeling the pain of the truth. For this reason, I think it is difficult for people to write about their = weaknesses. It makes us vulnerable when we stop covering up our inner selves, and start being honest. However, writing about one’s strengths can be just as difficult. Society has frowned upon being boastful and openly praising oneself because it can lead to conceit and self-importance. The qualities of modesty and humility are beat into our heads from childhood. Unfortunately, self-praise has become so stigmatized that we feel uncomfortable even discussing our strengths. Even though writing about my greatest strength and weakness was difficult, and a bit uncomfortable, I think it was important for me to do so. It placed me on the first few stairs of the ladder leading to my self-knowledge.

A Small Piece of Wisdom

Friday nights alone with my yiayia would probably not find themselves high up on my list of favorite things to do; in fact, I would venture to say that they rank pretty highly on my list of things to avoid. Yet, one Friday evening a few Decembers ago I found myself sprawled out next to her on the living room couch, sweating through my shorts and t-shirt. The fire-place to the right blasted as much heat into the room as the ancient radiator (which I’m pretty sure is against fire codes) to the left, and yet she still decided we both needed a “light” wool blanket for that extra layer of warmth.
Suddenly, with a doleful look, my yiayia silenced the Greek news anchors reporting full volume out of the T.V. and stared vacantly into the fire-place. I’d noticed sometimes she had bouts of sadness, but I had always figured them simply natural parts of growing old; as if they came packaged along with the wrinkles and dentures.
Without averting attention from the fire she said, “Theo (uncle) Kosta is really sick.”
I looked at her and nodded sympathetically. Parkinson’s disease is a tragic illness and I care about my great uncle a very much. However, at that particular moment I was preoccupied with evaluating whether there were any other articles of clothing I could remove without provoking a lecture on modesty. Most of our conversations in the past began with her convincing me she’d be dead by the end of the week, and ended with her telling me that I was too young to be talking about death; thus I prepared myself for a fast-paced speech of muddled Greek and English about how dreadful it is to be old.
A melancholy smile lined her lips. “The fire,” she said, “reminds me of when we were young.”
Suddenly, my body temperature became infinitely less important; my yiayia rarely talked about her and her seven brothers and sisters. I listened fervently devouring the story she told of the five siblings that traveled together to America. They were all homesick at first, but three of them, including my yiayia, moved on. These three got married, had families, and lived happily. The two remaining sisters, however, refused to be content in America. They refused comfort from their happy siblings, and became consumed by jealousy. The two unhappy sisters, one of which was my yiayia’s closest sibling growing up, stopped speaking to the rest of the family, and eventually lost contact completely. My yiayia didn’t even know if they were still alive while she was telling me the story.
I desperately wanted to say something profound to let her know I was listening, but all I could think of was, “that’s so sad.”
She turned to me square in the face and said in pure English, “Anna, you find what you look for. If you look for the worst, you find it. Always look for the best.”
We sat next to each other for a while in silence beneath the wool blanket, and then went to bed.
That night turned out to be one of the best experiences I have ever had, and I’ve looked forward to every Friday night with my yiayia since.

The Answer to the Un-Answerable Question

What is the meaning of life? How do you measure a life’s value? These questions seem so daunting, perhaps because we human beings have been trying to answer them since the beginning of our existence. If it took great minds like Ovid and Descartes years to answer these questions, how can we expect to come up with responses in a few days?
After getting over the initial intimidation of answering a seemingly answer-less question, I began my search for the truth. I’ve found that defining life’s meaning and measuring its value is quite personal; it is a matter of opinion and individual feeling. There is no all-mighty, magical answer that pertains to every person that has walked the earth. Essentially, we create our own meanings for life, and we determine the value of life based on our personal definition. Some religious people consider life a prelude to the afterlife; for them, a life of value is one spent striving to follow religious teachings. Others measure a life’s value in dollar signs; they might consider economical success the meaning of life. If we think of the world as the home of billions presently and of trillions past, it becomes a pretty impersonal place; at the end of our lives there is no earthly judge who determines one’s worth. We must personally consider the value of our lives based on what we feel life should mean, and how fervently we stuck to our values.
In order to feel like my life is fulfilled, there are a few things I must experience before my death (knock on wood.) First, I want to have a family. I am really blessed to have been born into a loving, deep-rooted family; I grew up with a blend of cultural values and religious morals that have increasingly guided me as I’ve gotten older. I want teach my children the same ethics my parents taught me. I want to pass on my beliefs, create legacy, a nurture someone else. I want to experience motherhood, the joys and trials of marriage, and the love of my own children. Families themselves are what have sustained humanity throughout the ages. They are the way human beings reproduce; they sustain nations, and cultures. Perhaps if I do as good a job raising my children, they’ll hope to start their own families as well.
Secondly, I hope that by the end of my life I have a greater understanding of other people. I am just one of the 6 billion human beings co-inhabiting the earth. This means that 5 million nine-hundred ninety nine thousand other people are experiencing the world differently than me. I want to travel the world and live amidst other cultures. I want to understand how other people live; I want to eat their food, listen to their music, and find out what they are proud of. Essentially, I want to find out what other parts of the world have to offer that I’m missing out on. I suppose curiosity of other cultures is what has shaped humanity and allowed it to take over the earth. In pre-historic times, groups of hominids’ interaction with other groups of hominids spawned tribes and nations. Cultural diffusion has made humanity stronger.
Along the lines of understanding and experiencing other cultures, I want to master another language. I don’t simply mean knowing another language conversationally, or taking a few courses of it in college. I want to become flawlessly fluent. From the limited amount of Greek I speak, I realize that communicating solely in another language forces one to think differently. Words from two different languages can translate the same, but feel different. Difference in languages is one of the biggest separations between countries and cultures. Perhaps there would be less conflict among human beings if everyone were able to communicate smoothly, and if everyone were willing to think like another culture thinks.
I am thankful for the amount of Greek I know, because I use it to communicate with my yiayia. She loves to recount stories of her childhood, stories of her parents’ childhoods, and even more distant stories that her parents told her. Someday, I want to write down all our family stories (or at least the ones my grandparents share at every family gathering.) My Greek ancestors lived through multiple Occupations, and struggled to make my life possible. They risked their lives to preserve our culture and our religion; thus, I feel obligated to honor them by preserving their memories. I think part of what makes human cultures so beautiful is that they are all full of stories from the past. I would love to add to the history of mankind, even if it is only a miniscule part.
Finally, I hope that by the end of my days I have learned to simplify my life. We make life so much more confusing and stressful with the amount of “stuff” we fill it with. We Americans have houses full of items we rarely use; our material possession become a main focus in our lives, and they distract us from matters such as family, and the fulfillment of our lives. If everyone would turn his attention towards his/her values and goals in life, perhaps the world would become a more peaceful place.

On a Quite Depressing Subject

It seems that humanity is obsessed with permanence, perhaps because everything, including life itself, is temporary. Shelley demonstrates the temporality of man’s creations in “Ozymandius,” where he describes the decrepit remains of King Ozymandius’ “great works” half-buried in a wasteland. Walls will crumble, empires will fall, and artwork will disintegrate. There is, however, one exception to this notion of impermanence: death. Death is our only guarantee; it allows no exceptions, cannot be bought off, and does not supply trial runs. It is mysterious and frightening because death is a permanent change that we are blindly thrust into.
Death even frightens Gilgamesh, the incomparable Sumerian demigod; after his lover, Enkidu, dies, Gilgamesh becomes aware of his own mortality and fears his impending death. While in mourning for Enkidu he cries: “Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will... find Utnapishtim...” (97). Thus, Gilgamesh resolves to seek out his immortal father, Utnapishtim, in search of eternal life. However, at the end of the quest, Utnapishtem simply tells Gilgamesh, “There is no permanence” (106). Gilgamesh must accept that one cannot be immortal because nothing lasts forever. Physical destruction is inevitable for everyone and everything on earth.
One may ask how we go about our daily business with our doom looming in the back of our minds. However, there is no one answer to this question because everyone copes differently with the knowledge of death. When we are young we generally cannot fathom our demise because death does not seem real; some people spend their whole lives ignoring the thought of death so they don’t have to confront fear. Others find comfort in religion. One of the most luring aspects of a faith is its proposition of an afterlife; death seems so much less daunting if we know what awaits us. Most of us simply choose to make our lives satisfying, regardless of their fleetingness; some people have a family, and others accumulate wealth. What brings meaning to our lives is the impressions we leave on earth after we die. We as individual people may not be remembered, but attitudes we have, the morals we pass on to others, the ideas we express through art and occupation can last; they become timeless, everlasting, and as close to permanent as humans can achieve.

Thinking about the Hero

One day in kindergarten my teacher told the class to draw a picture of a hero. I started drawing the Pink Power Ranger however, Mrs. Walsh sternly advised me to reconsider my subject. “A hero,” she told me, “doesn’t have to be pretend or super” and she insisted I pick a “real-life” person, like a firefighter. I went home that day with a rolled-up drawing of a fireman; I knew that my teacher designated him an acceptable hero, but I didn’t understand why. In the world of a five year old girl, selflessness and courage are just words, but fighting “bad guys” in a pink costume is heroic.
Those we consider heroes possess the qualities we most admire. Thus, some revere Batman as much as others do Martin Luther King Jr. However, this abstract concept of heroism makes defining a hero difficult; oftentimes, we end up with a variety of clichés instead of a solid classification. We commonly hear the assertion that heroes “do what’s right” and “never give up,” but we rarely hear what the right thing to do is, and what they are not giving up from. If we refer back to the story of Robinhood we’ll remember that he is hailed for stealing. Despite the multitude of traits people seek in heroes, and the many definitions of “right” and “wrong” a few aspects of heroism seem to stretch across both time and universe. Heroes always fight for a noble cause, they endure sort of hardship, and they never do deeds looking for heroic recognition. Even though stealing is universally accepted as immoral, we consider Robinhood a hero. How can we make such a contradiction? Robinhood steels from the greedy villains because he seeks justice, not personal gain; therefore he is an acceptable hero.
Because humankind generally agrees on these aspects of heroism, a common string of characteristics weaves through our heroes. Courage, conviction, morality, altruism, and physical and/or mental strength, we may find, repeat themselves in newspaper stories, classic literature, and mythology. If all people are striving to be the best human beings possible, it is clear what qualities society deems important to attain.
Many of the well-known heroes we emulate happen to be men; however, this occurrence is not because more male heroes exist than female. As unfortunate as it may be, men have dominated societies for countless time periods. As a reflection of this dominance, the male heroes commonly outshine their female counterparts in stories both modern and ancient.
Essentially, heroes represent human passion for life. Our creation and/or perpetuation of these stories of extraordinary deeds reflects our inherint desire to keep the human spirit alive. I disagree with Bertold Brecht’s notion that only communities in turmoil need heroes. Heroes, whether existing in myth or in reality, serve as symbols of virtue and moral strength; their stories inspire even when there are no cities to save or criminals to punish. Hopefully one day there will be no need for heroes to save the world from moral decay and self-destruction; however, it will probably take a hero to get us to that point, and his/her name will undoubtedly be remembered through the arts like so many others.