Blog #4

Trevor Poirier

31 July 2013

AP English 11

Mrs. Wilhelmus

Kant

            The correlation of perception and reality is something that will always interest me.  Things we do and see are often strongly influenced by how we see and perceive them.  How we see them comes from our minds.  Who surrounds us, the generation we live in, our age, and our maturity have a lot to do with this.  Perhaps our take on something comes not from us seeing what it truly is, but how we think of it.  This thought beforehand based on past experiences affects our vision in daily life.  If our perception was different, so would our view on a vast number of things in the world we live in.

            Perceptions are best symbolized by a pair of glasses.  I wear glasses, and my vision is affected by my glasses because I obviously see through them.  Our perception is like a pair of glasses, as our thoughts dictate our view on things similar to how a pair of glassed does.  This comes from a part of the book where the red-tinted glasses experiment takes place.  Many see it as a metaphor or symbol for what I previously touched on -- perception.   

            If you wear red glasses, you see things red.  If you were blue glasses, you see things with a blue tint, and so on.  In the experiment, the color of the glasses represents a person's overall perception of life.  It shows how it affects reality in a simplistic way.  The red-tinted glasses experiment applies to my life in a number of ways.  An example would be that, regardless of the time you live in or any situation, your perspective and attitude directly reflects a number of things.  These things include your thoughts, how you view something, the actions taken, and the manner in which they are taken. 

            Perspective affects daily decisions for me such as buying clothes.  If I perceive a shirt or jacket as "cool" or "nice", then I will most likely buy it.  However, just because I see it that way does not mean someone else does.  In reality, it is just a shirt with no concrete or universal perception.  For a more applicable example, If I face adversity, my perspective on that situation and life as a whole will dictate how I face it.  I perceive adversity as a stumbling block to success, so I would continue to face it and work hard in an effort to prove people wrong.  Every person's perspective is different, and I am no exception to that.