What Price, Perception?
Merriam-Webster defines perception as “a result of perceiving, observation, a mental image, awareness of the elements through physical sensation, intuitive cognition and a capacity for comprehension”. I dare argue that the Oxford English Dictionary would not digress much from such meaning, nor would Samuel Johnson’s, Chambers, Collins, Longman, Random House or other Webster’s. May be, like Adlai Stevenson admonished VKK Menon, I have to look up a ninth dictionary, just to be absolutely certain.
My gripe of the day is that, much as I try, I fail to understand why people around me treat prejudice and notion as perceptions. There is a “perception”, I am told, that I have an attitude problem. A notion, I say, entirely unsubstantiated and held by a sad few. The attitude is all mine, I concede, the problem is all theirs, in any case. All style and no substance, I am told, is the way some “perceive” me. Oxymoronic, I say, for, if there were no substance, I should have been too inconsequential for them to bother with any perception of me, in which case, thank you for the compliment. Some eminent selves perceive behavioural aberrations - unsympathetic, selfish, egotistic and altogether unpleasant. I am stunned and even worse, confused. Hurt, when someone recently added cowardly to the list…
Or, should I be? I don’t mean to have an elaborate exercise in philosophy hinging on nuances of language here, not that I could ever carry one even if I wanted to. But, help me here, should I really worry? I have been advised to, by people I deem honest and even caring. My career, one that I have worked very hard to run based on pure merit all this while, could depend on smoothing away such perceptions, or so I am told. I don’t know and probably will not for some time, but, I have reached a conclusion. I know my intentions have always been noble, and never was any malice or hurt intended. If that doesn’t count, maybe, I need to join a clique and have some “perceptions” of my own. Rarely, I conclude, does conformist join the queue of other epithets thrown at anyone… My latest pons asinorum…
