Summer is waking up to the cool breeze wafting through lace curtains, light blotting away the night sky, a backdrop of dawn to dark, leafy silhouettes. Summer is mosquitoes buzzing against net doors, balm on the bites, humming of air conditioners, sweat slaloming down the spine. Summer is flaming melon slices, frozen licks of ice lollies, crunchy chilled cucumber. Summer is swimming pools full of snotty kids, placid sleepy noons after spicy Sunday lunches, tangy, tongue teasing mangoes. Summer is tar melting on blinding white roads, noxious car fumes, shimmering hot air mirages. Summer is blazing gulmohar, purple bougainvillea, tuberose-scented dusks, sprinkler-drenched grass underfoot. Summer is a flavour, a vision, a perception.
But are all perceptions real?
Perceptions are the mystery of the brain’s ability to turn electrical impulses and chemical reactions into a world we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. There is no light in the brain. Yet the light of the sun is blinding. This disparity is crucial because without someone to see it the sun is invisible. There is no light visible in Nature without the eye to see it. Not just that.
Sensory abilities differ vastly among millions of species on the Earth. The bat’s sonar which is real to it is hidden from the deaf paramecium. Sensory input-output even differs from person to person. Perceptions of a reality will change depending on the person’s acuity, predisposition, habits, memories and upbringing. Thus it is erroneous for us to expect others to ‘see’ what we do. So when you reject or oppose thoughts, ideas, concepts that contradict or disagree with your principles, philosophy or life style you are being short sighted.
What is real to us could be an illusion to somebody else. Albert Einstein said, ‘Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’ It would help to remember that we have the advantage of one extra-sensory gift---our ability to reason---in order to find out where each one of us stands in the shadowy world of illusion versus reality. So the next time you are faced with an unacceptable situation, don’t overreact. Stop to think----is this for real or an illusion? And then you will probably end up slotting it in the realm of significance where you actually should; as just another tiny moment in the timelessness of your existence.
Copyright @ Sutapa Basu 2015. All rights reserved.
