Perceptions @ MindSay

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2007) — Think about the confused feelings that occur when you meet someone whose tone of voice doesn't seem to quite fit with his or her gender. A new study by neuroscientists from Northwestern University focuses on the brain's processing of such sensory information about another's gender to examine whether hearing fundamentally changes visual experience.   The rest of the story HERE!

Interesting article ... Our brains are pretty amazing gizmos ... and how they work, well ... so many intricate details all knit together ...  Wondrous creatures we are!  :)

~ B

I have posted below a very common section of the Bible called 1 Corinthians 13, with which many people are familiar.  It is often read at weddings.  My intention today originally was to just post the last portion, but, as always, every time I read it, it grows in me.  Ironically, this is my point.  I am NOT saying there IS no right and wrong, no wise and unwise.  I am just saying ... are we so arrogant that we cannot listen with an open mind?  that we cannot find some "gem" worth gleaning and polishing when offered by another. 

 

• We all believe what we believe is intelligent, wise, and correct.  And so it may well be, but how many understand that our own knowledge, no matter how intelligent, wise, and correct, is still incomplete and imperfect?   

• We all think everyone who disagrees with us is just a little less intelligent, wise, and just a little less correct.   I'm right so you must be wrong.  Again, this may in fact, be true, but because our knowledge or beliefs are imperfect and incomplete ... how many of us stop to consider that, perhaps, ours is just one piece of the puzzle, and if each of us put our pieces together, we might just have a much better overall picture than when we smash and tromp on one another's understanding?  Some pieces may not fit, but we don't know until we listen ...

• How many of us allow our own understanding to grow rather than clinging violently to concepts ideas we learned years ago?   When I was a child, I thought as a child ... now that I am grown ...? What if Abraham demanded his God be like those of the Chaldees?  What if Moses decided to remain Egyptian?  What if Paul hung on to his stubborn hatred?  What if Newton just enjoyed archery?  There aren't many things that I believed 20 or 30 years ago that have not changed radically over the years.  A few basic nuggets perhaps, but even they seem completely different because the context has changed. 

• 1 + 1 = 2 ;  1 X 1 will always equal just 1. 

   * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

 

1 If with the tongues of men and of messengers I speak, and have not love, I have become brass sounding, or a cymbal tinkling;

2 and if I have prophecy, and know all the secrets, and all the knowledge, and if I have all the faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing;

3 and if I give away to feed others all my goods, and if I give up my body that I may be burned, and have not love, I am profited nothing.

4 The love is long-suffering, it is kind, the love doth not envy, the love doth not vaunt itself, is not puffed up,

5 doth not act unseemly, doth not seek its own things, is not provoked, doth not impute evil, 6 rejoiceth not over the unrighteousness, and rejoiceth with the truth;

7 all things it beareth, all it believeth, all it hopeth, all it endureth.

8 The love doth never fail; and whether [there be] prophecies, they shall become useless; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall become useless;

9 for in part we know, and in part we prophecy;

10 and when that which is perfect may come, then that which [is] in part shall become useless. 11 When I was a babe, as a babe I was speaking, as a babe I was thinking, as a babe I was reasoning, and when I have become a man, I have made useless the things of the babe;

12 for we see now through a mirror obscurely, and then face to face; now I know in part, and then I shall fully know, as also I was known;

13 and now there doth remain faith, hope, love -- these three; and the greatest of these [is] love.

 

Young's Literal Translation

 

~ B

Am I merely being fanciful when I insist I don't see as the majority of the world sees?  Not that my terrible eyesight plays a part.  Or perhaps it does.  But I shouldn't think so.

I often forget that what is obvious to me isn't obvious to most other people.  Then again, what is obvious to most people generally goes unregarded by me.  That which I think odd about me seems normal to others.  That which I rarely give a second thought seems unnatural to others.

I try to understand it.  I like to understand things.  But this one continually flummoxes me.

Either people do not think as I do, or they do.  Logic says this cannot happen at the same time.  Yet I am constantly surprised when I am forced to realize I am not, as they say, "normal."  Because I feel normal.  In a way.  I blend in easily.  I think.  It is a source of joy (and pride?) that I fly under the radar.  That I am not noticed.  That I am easily forgettable.

And yet... and yet... it irritates me when people express astonishment over what I think is obvious.  What can this mean?  Am I really that intelligent?  Am I really that observant?  Do the synapses in my brain work better than others?  Is it merely genetic fluke?  Or is it because my parents read to me when I was little?

But there.  I feel the shame of conceit.  Who am I, I protest, to be anything special?  What have I done to be regarded differently?  What talents do I give the world?  Do I not keep happily hidden away?  Do I not revel in being ignored?

I am not ambitious.  And yet I have ambition.  Is that so easily understood?

If you understand it, then once again I see the dividing line between me and the rest of the world.  For I struggle with my dreams, my fancies, my observations.  I was taught that if I am not contributing something to the world, I might as well be a failure.  Well, what am I contributing?  A bunch of silly questions that may or may not have answers, and even if they do, will those answers serve any purpose?

The practical side of me hates the Dreamer within.  The fanciful side of me grows frustrated with the Pragmatist.  It is a constant battle.  The desire to make dreams reality, and the desire to elevate dreams beyond the practicalities of the world.

I smile now, at this outpouring.  You would not be able to guess the inspiration from which it sprung.  Nor shall I tell you.  I have made myself to be enough of an oddity for one day.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I will laugh at this passionate outpouring.  The trouble with wisdom is that it recognizes folly.  Even I am not free from my own observations.  In fact, I rarely am.  But that is a musing for another time.

For the moment, these hastily typed out words must suffice.

At least I have an idea of what I'm thinking.  Whenever I begin to doubt the idea that I might be a writer, I remember that I rarely know what  I think or feel or believe until it is written down in black and white (or blue and gray and pink and purple and green and red and...).

I have a suspicion that this weekend's contemplation is merely a slow fermentation of what is to come.

Or maybe it isn't.

Oh, the frustrations of a contrary spirit.