What Are You Looking At?

Photo by Chris Flaten

What if what you are seeing is not what is actually there, but rather a carefully engineered perception of reality. By expanding our world view and our imaginations, we can learn to see more clearly all that is truly before us and envision a brighter future.  

Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it.

There is an old Buddhist parable about a man, who while leisurely walking home one evening, encounters what appears to be a snake curled up in the middle of the path before him. It is twilight, the time of day where the sun has nearly set yet there remains an ambient light. At first, in this half-night he didn’t notice it, but suddenly he stops in his tracks. His heart is now pounding in his chest. He is wide-eyed and on hyper alert. He’s been told repeatedly that the area in which he is walking is populated with many poisonous and deadly snakes. The path is narrow and bordered with a cliff on one side and a steep mountainside on the other. He is paralyzed with fear not knowing what to do. As he stands there motionless, he begins to notice that the supposed snake has not moved at all in his presence. Peering more closely he suddenly realizes that he was mistaken. Turns out it was not a snake, but instead it appears to be nothing more than an old piece of rope! Feelings of relief rush over him. His heart rate slows, he takes a deep breath, and he once again proceeds on his journey. However, as he steps over the coiled rope, he glances down and sees that it is not a rope, but rather a string of jewels. 

“The imagination is not just our capacity to invent, to project something new. Imagination is more like our feel for the world. Think of it as a faculty of perception pitched somewhere between intellect and instinct. Instinct is our biological hardwiring that determines certain kinds of responses to our environment. Intellect is our capacity for theoretical reflection.” — Bryan Stevenson, Founding attorney of the Equal Justice Initiative

How we see our world, and each other for that matter, has less to do with the mechanics of sight and more to do with our perceptions of what we see.

 
“We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it. ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.’” — Matt Haig, quoting Henry David Thoreau

Where We Direct Our Attention Matters

It also has a lot to do with where we direct our attention. In 2019, the conference on Learning and the Brain in San Francisco Introduced  some startling data. Researchers presenting at the conference showed that the empathy centers in children’s brains appear to be shrinking. No one had a definitive explanation as to why this was happening, but several theories were postulated. Several of these theories made logical sense when you look closely at them. 

For example, when we are searching Google for something, how many pages deep do we scroll? If you are like me, you might make it as far as half way down the first page before selecting a source. Once a site is selected, how deeply do we read the content posted? If you are like me, you might scan quickly looking for saleable tidbits. You are probably doing it right now with this post. And after selecting a source, how many others do we check out before forming a consensus? 

Google, like all search engines, uses a very complex algorithm to determine what results to present to you upon making a search. For simplification, we can narrow it down to five key factors as reported by Vlado Pavlik, former Head of Content at Search Engine Optimization firm Mangools. 

• First, there is the meaning of the query. Google must decipher what exactly is the user’s intent. The algorithm will examine the meaning of words, what type of search it is, and whether or not the query is time-sensitive. 
  

• Second, Google examines the relevance of the pages, or what pages answer the user’s query the best. This is where keywords come into play. 
  

• Third, the algorithm analyzes the quality of the content. It looks at expertise in the area, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 
  

• Fourth, Google wants to see if a website is user-friendly. It looks at page responsiveness, appearance across browsers, page speed, and security. 
  

• Finally fifth, and probably most significant in relation to what we end up seeing, Google’s search results are heavily influenced by the individual circumstances of the user. It takes into account the user’s location, search engine history, and search settings. After living in the UK for a while, a search regarding football looks very different than it does in the US. 

Also, it is important to note that quite often the top hits on your Google search results are paid advertisements. Fortunately the word “sponsored” precedes most of these posts. These can often look like legitimately curated results, and to a certain extent they are; however, they are displayed first because they are paid to be so. And it is not just search engines that do this. Take a closer look at your Instagram or Facebook Feed. If you are like me, once I have searched for an item on Google I am suddenly inundated with posts about said item in my social media feeds. 

Over time, based on your search history, you will begin to receive suggestions from sites or images that align with what you have previously viewed. And it’s not just search engines and social media. From how many news outlets do you gather your information? How many media outlets do you block or quickly skip over because they do not align with your views? Where we once received information for local sources who had reporters on the ground providing the stories, we now receive most of our information from a very limited number of resources. Forty years ago, there were 50 companies in charge of most American media. Now, 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by just six corporations: AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, Newscorp and Viacom. This means that just 232 media executives are calling the shots for the vast majority of the information with which we are presented. Even your “local” news is presenting stories they have sourced from one of these corporations

 
You might be asking, “What does this have to do with empathy development and how we see the world?” Well, if we only envision a world based on a highly curated and limited point of view, we are less likely to truly see, let alone understand someone else or their experience. We become more fixed in a singular perspective making it more challenging to imagine an alternative.

Photo by Alexey Derevtsov

It is not just from where we get our world view, it is also what type of information we are consuming that has a tremendous impact on how we see things. In the news media, there is the saying, “if it bleeds it leads.” This phrase is attributed to William Randolph Hearst back in the late 19th century after he noted that the stories involving horrific incidents were the ones that caught the public’s attention. 

If everything you read, watch, or hear is showing you a world that is dangerous and out of control, you are more likely to see a world as being dangerous and out of control. If you are repeatedly told that there are deadly snakes populating the local pathways, you are much more likely to mistake an ordinary rope, or a precious string of jewels, for a dangerous snake. 

This is all part of the survival instinct in our brains. We are designed to seek out and decipher patterns and similarities. If you are taught, or have experienced something or someone as being safe and positive, you are more likely to associate those same traits to another thing or person that you sense is similar, whether that is the reality or not. If you are taught, or have experienced something as dangerous or threatening, you are more likely to associate those same traits to anything that aligns closely with that experience or person, again, whether or not that is the case. So if the internet algorithms, media outlets, and even we ourselves are curating a narrow, singular view of the world, we will begin to view the world correspondingly. In our ever more polarized society, it is easy to see how people in power can use this to manipulate desired outcomes. Controlling the media is imperative to their maintaining power. Thomas Jefferson understood the importance of journalistic freedom when he said, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

James K. A. Smith writes about this best in his piece from the Image Journal —

“Of late, many people have overwhelmingly been shaped by stories that portray others as threats and competitors, even stories that fundamentally dehumanize those who differ from us. Our habits of perception have been subtly trained to imagine the other as an invader, a competitor, an adversary, which is why our default has become individualism, egoism, and self-preservation. We then make the world in our image.”

How can we counteract these “habits of perception?”

First and foremost, we must encourage ourselves, and others, to embody a different image of the world, starting with acknowledging what novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls, “the danger of a single story.” As you read, watch, or listen to a story, ask yourself some of the following questions —

• From whose point of view is this story being told?

• Whose story is not being told here?

• What voices are absent?

• Who might benefit from the way this story is being presented?

• Who might be disadvantaged?

Second, Intentionally seek out alternative sources of information, specifically from those sources that might make you feel uncomfortable. Then lean into that discomfort. Where does it manifest in your body? What other thoughts or feelings does this discomfort trigger? From where does this discomfort originate? Is it from something you have heard? Is it from something you have been taught? Is it from something you have actually experienced? In other words, who is the author of this discomfort? Then ask yourself, “Am I actually experiencing a threat or is it simply a perceived threat, like the snake in the pathway?” This question is a very important one for parents and teachers to ask when supporting a child who is experiencing distress or fear. Because our brains want to keep us safe, it can often trigger reactions in our bodies to something that we may not even be experiencing on a personal level. I even do this after watching a particularly violent movie. Even though the violence is not happening to me personally, I can still feel the trauma in my body afterward. My senses often become heightened and I find myself on greater alert.

Additionally, Mindfulness practices can help a lot with this. Instead of reacting immediately with fear or repulsion, pause, take a breath, and allow a little space to appear. Within that space we can examine the situation or the story more closely, sense it with not only our eyes, but our whole being. Allowing ourselves to inhabit this space, enables us to respond to what is happening rather than impulsively react. Separating ourselves from our thoughts and focussing more on inhabiting the present moment can bring about a notable change in perception.

“Just by looking and paying attention can provoke changes.” — Amparo Muñoz Morellá, Psychologist, art lover, researcher, and photographer

Another thing we can do to help bring greater clarity to our world view is, and I know this may sound strange, read more fiction. How is it that reading something that is intentionally “made up” help us in gaining a greater grasp on reality? Reading stories about people and circumstances outside of our own experience; watching movies, listening to music, or viewing art from a variety of creators from different walks of life helps us to develop the empathy centers in our brains. It is through the creative arts that we can help reshape our imaginations and see the world differently. It can open up possibilities that we never imagined before. 

Again, James K. A. Smith —

“This is why the arts are crucial to our collective imagination. Grabbing hold of us by the senses, artworks have a unique capacity to shape our attunement, our feel for the world. The question isn’t whether the arts will shape us, but which.”

It also may be helpful to do a little detoxing. The world is going to keep on keeping on whether or not you are reading your newsfeed, checking your Instagram, or scanning the comments section. A prolonged vacation from the “bleeding” headlines and tunnel vision view of the world can be a wonderful reset for your imagination and perspective. 

Finally, take more good into your life. Jim VandelHei’s new book, “Just the Good Stuff,” and Dr. Rick Hanson’s “Take in the Good,” are two wonderful resources on this. With our brain being predisposed to hold onto negative or threatening imagery and information for survival purposes, we have to make a concerted effort to absorb and hold onto positive imagery and information. 

I am not proposing a pollyanna view of the world, where we try and force ourselves to see everything through rose-tinted glasses. Rather I am suggesting an expansion of our view of the world to include all the good that exists around us: an expanded view that allows us to hold those things with which we agree and those things with which we disagree simultaneously; an expanded view that allows us to imagine a better future for our world and ourselves, enabling us to seek it out or create it; where we can clearly see those things that pose a real threat along our pathway and respond appropriately. 

Who knows, we just might encounter some precious jewels.

“And once we have expanded our capacity to see and sense each other, we may just find ourselves ready to let go of our warped images of one another and take down the divisions that keep us from our dreams.” — Algorithms Reinforce Our Bubbles by Rie Algeo Gilsdorf, Founder of Embody Equity 

Ballpoint Pen on Wall by Douglas Gordon, Tate Modern, London.