perception Archives - Page 14 of 14

December 12, 2015July 27, 2015 by Pete Wiley

Truth

The truth can be elusive.

Some believe that there are many factors that influence how we interpret what is or isn’t true, including our values, experiences, culture, and condition.

Our truth may not be the same as someone else’s truth. Each of us has our own reality based on what brought us to where we are in our lives and how we see the world.

When the truth of two different people is revealed as different, it can seem as if one or the other person is intentionally obscuring the truth (aka lying). Of course, some people do tend to give truth (even their own truth) a wide berth. So how can we tell if people are misrepresenting what they believe to be true, or if their reality just differs from our reality?

Affectation

It’s very interesting to see how the lingo changes through the years and how phrases that are firmly associated with a certain subset of society (e.g. surfers, bikers, environmental scientists) explode into common usage.

For example, I started thinking about this entry and have since noticed that I use the word “dude” a lot.

It’s not intentional. I have no idea where it came from.

I’m not proud of it.

But is it in affectation? I can honestly say that I do not say the word “dude” to elicit any specific response or present myself in any particular light. But it begs the question, when is a figure of speech (or action or fashion statement) an affectation?