From the children's book, The Blind Men and the Elephant, Lillian Quigley retells the ancient fable of six blind men who visit the palace of the Rajah and encounter an elephant for the first time.  As each touches the animal with his hands, he announces his discoveries.

The first blind man put out his hand and touched the side of the elephant.  "How smooth!  An elephant is like a wall."  The second blind man put out his hand and touched the trunk of the elephant.  "How round!  An elephant is like a snake."  The third blind man put out his hand and touched the tusk of the elephant.  "How sharp!  An elephant is like a spear."  The fourth blind man put out his hand and touched the leg of the elephant.  "How tall!  An elephant is like a tree."  The fifth blind man reached out his hand and touched the ear of the elephant.  "How wide!  An elephant is like a fan."  The sixth blind man put out his hand and touched the tail of the elephant.  "How thin!  An elephant is like a rope."

      An argument ensued, each blind man thinking his own perception of the elephant was the correct one.  The Rajah, awakened by the commotion, called out from the balcony.  "The elephant is a big animal," he said.  "Each man touched only one part.  You must put all the parts together to find out what an elephant is like."

      Enlightened by the Rajah's wisdom, the blind men reached agreement.  "Each one of us knows only a part.  To find out the whole truth we must put all the parts together."

So I had an encounter with thoughts about perception this last week. During a conversation with this lady she tells me that she had recently been admonished that just because she perceived something to be a certain way didn't give her permission to attack someone based on her perception.

Now one must first be aware that this lady is very, to the extreme, a black and white thinker. People and place and things and events are either all good or all bad, there are no gray areas in her thinking. So the comment made to her wasn't meant to be an attack on her, rather it was intended as a way to have her think in a way that would fit more within societies norms in interactions with others.

So the conversation with this lady got me to thinking about the way I perceive things... although I am not a black and white thinker, I do have a tendency to act or react to certain people, events, and/or words according to how I perceive them to be based on my life experiences.

My perception in the situation of sharing innermost thoughts, hopes and feelings is skewered. I am immediately defensive when I begin to share~ often I will downplay the importance of what I am trying to talk about so that the person I am talking to doesn't know that this is really important to me so it removes power from thm to use it as a weapon to demean and degrade me... I will shut down and not share if it is something that I can talk myself out believing is important. I will let something build inside me until it just errupts if it is a negative emotion, rather than try and talk abut it.

My perception is so warped in this type of situation that it is difficult for me to seperate truth from the false evidence appearing real...

Then I have this other side of me... my PollyAnna side... from that position my perception of things becomes overly optimistic. Not that I would consider this a bad way of perceiving life... but many people find it annoying and the cynacisim you get when you have a pollyanna attitude is often extremely confrontational. Of course at this point, when I was thinking about this part of perception... I wondered if people really were that confrontational... or had something been embedded so deep in me that I expect confrontation when I am being pollyanna like and so I skewer what someone says or does to fit my expectation of response????

How many times in interactions with others, are we actually seeing what is actually going on orhave we allowed what we believe the reaction will be cloud our perception so that no matter what the other person says or does we will twist it to match our preconceived notion of the reaction?????

Thoughts to ponder and experiences to notice to see if perhaps it isnt time to change how I am 'seeing' the elephant in front of me....