The Boring Picture...

Is it almost midnight...this past week seemed like a marathon run both work wise and otherwise...K1 seems to be hitting up East Coast a lot more leaving this lone warrior to manage (just barely) on both the home and office front....

I have mentally checked off my list of Things to Do in the evenings, all the critical work items - done (yeah!), K2 all fed and in bed by 10.00 PM ( this is a good day...his normal bedtime is 11.00 PM)...I just bugged a hapless someone across the pond about schedules and am ready to call it a night...yet the past couple days, I have had this picture flash in my mind....the picture that my Psychology 101 teacher had started her first lecture with titled...the Boring Picture...well it was anything but....and truth be told it was called the boring picture because of the two psychologists who gave it so much visibility and credibility - Boring & Leeper. The picture also defined "Perceptual Ambiguity"...you either see a young woman or an old woman...look a little bit closer ...give your senses some time to adjust and you see both...or maybe you just don't want to and just prefer the picture to be one-dimensional...

Perception is the process of becoming aware...gaining understanding...and then basing a judgement on that understanding...perception is driven by the senses say most psychologists. I agree with them BUT I also believe that at the most basic level we are animals (albeit advanced ones) and we very much start off operating at the "gut level" or with instincts...and slowly condition ourselves (like Pavlovian Dogs) to stop listening to our gut. I think a lot of us undervalue instincts and try and go with logical,rationale, fact-based way of reaching conclusions, making decisions...what has been accumulated on past experiences, cultural influences and socialization....yet going back to my point from before -- at the most basic level we are animals with the "survival instinct" (Fight or Flight) and sometimes its very valuable to trust your gut on deals, decisions and people...back it up with logic later....but if your gut is sending out "a red flag" listen to it...irrational- yes! ; no logical or sequential thinking - yes!; not backed by facts - yes! BUT I have found that in most cases those gut reactions point you in the right direction...

I will give you a simple example -- Charles Shobraj, a serial killer in India was a self effacing, pleasing to look at...wonderfully articulate person...he came across as very well educated...we had poured over his TV interviews in the course of our Psychology courses, with a focus on understanding how his mind worked...and by listening to him and looking at him I know 50% of our class was getting sympathetic towards him...what's my point here...it is the perceptual ambiguity...your senses are telling you he is alright...yet you know he is a serial killer.

Anyway I digress...in life what I have realized is it is so easy to cloak our "instinct" in the heavy veils of Cultural Propriety, Socialization and past experiences (which in some cases are not even relavent)...we allow ourselves to see things differently from the way they actually are...layering in our arrogance ( for eg. - you know I am so good, everyone just goes with what I have to say); our complexes ( for eg. - no one is listening to me because I have a soft voice and am a woman); our perception of self (for eg. - I am too good to be boxed)...and we treat life like a chess game...waiting for someone to play the next move...the reality is there might not be another player and we are getting played by our own "Perceptual Ambiguity"...

So tell me what you see in the boring picture....feel any sense of ambiguity yet...really...are you sure? Want to Check Again?