Challenge Your Perceptions

I've thought long and hard about this blog. In fact, I have been playing with ideas for this blog for almost a year now. I've been thinking of a way to share my unique views in a non-threatening way that will, hopefully, inspire some change, or at least some new ways of thinking. I've been wrestling with ideas ranging from sharing what it's like to be a Mormon Democrat, to preaching against stigmas, to raising my voice against the most prevalent social issues of the day.

The final idea came to me at a religious service I attended this morning. A man stood up to give a spiritual thought and began speaking, with a heavily British accent, about how his audience (made up of teenagers) may be wondering what they could possibly learn from this 40 year-old man from London. After speaking for about 5 minutes, he drops the accent completely and admits he grew up in Arizona. A shockwave spread through his entire audience; he had them completely fooled. He then goes on to say that our perceptions determine our reality. How we perceive reality determines our ideas, attitudes, and choices.

That puts a lot of weight on our perceptions. The way we perceive our religion, our politics, our families, our peers, can dramatically alter the way we behave, the ideas we spread, the people we try to become, and the change we try to implement.

I left my parents house at age 18 with a set of fixed perceptions that were unlikely to change. I was a passionately conservative individual who had the right ideas about everything (or, regrettably, so I thought).

Then I met my husband.

People who are close to me may think that my seemingly drastic and sudden change in perceptions are all somehow his doing. In a way, they're right. Not because I wanted to change all my ideas to match his for the sake of agreement. He also never pressured me to change my opinion. All he did was challenge my perceptions. With that cursed three letter word:

"Why?"

Why do you feel this way? No, "because" is not an answer. "Because that's what I was taught" is not an answer either. Have you considered the opposite viewpoint? What source did you use to obtain that information?

All he did was ask questions that challenged my perceptions. Not because he wanted me to change my mind. Because he genuinely wanted to understand why I felt the way I felt. That kind of openness not only helped me feel like my opinion was valued, but it led to some serious introspection that led to some serious changes in perspective. And yes, we agree on a lot of things now that we didn't agree on before, but we still don't agree on everything 100%.

This is the kind of dialogue we need. Every day I get on Facebook and see two opposite groups fighting over something or other. They continually talk past each other, trying to shove personal viewpoints down someone else's throat. It always ends up with people getting offended and angry. What we need is patience and understanding. What we need is to accept the challenge to our perceptions. We need is to be willing to challenge our own perceptions.

One of my favorite video games of all time is called The Witness. Your character wakes up on a deserted island surrounded by hundreds of puzzles. You are given no directions, no background, and no help. You progress as you solve each puzzle. The game itself has no strong plot, or at least no clear storyline from start to finish. It sparks questions, introspection, and philosophical thinking. The greatest thing it does is force the player to constantly change perspective. It is a game of changing perceptions, which is why it is called The Witness. I could not have solved half the puzzles if my husband weren't right beside me offering me his perspective. There are times in the game where you can only solve the puzzle if you stand in a certain spot, or look at it a certain way. The game pairs these puzzles with philosophical quotes about human existence, patterns of thought, growth, innovation, etc.

I love what this game teaches about the importance of perspective. Life is so much like this game. We run into conundrums, social issues, personal problems, and obstacles that we need to get past either individually or together as a people in order to grow and progress. To solve these puzzles, we need to combine perspectives. We need to change perspectives. We need to look at these problems from every angle.

That's what I hope for this blog to be. I want to offer the new perceptions I've acquired. I want to challenge popular perceptions of the day. I want to challenge my own perceptions. I want to spark discussion. I want to promote new ways of thinking. This will bring up a lot of controversial topics, but topics I truly feel need to be discussed.

Insights, suggestions, and ideas are always appreciated. :)

Let's do this.