A Gift.
Providing you read to the end, it is.
“I don't use words to think,” I said, matter-of factly. “You're kidding!” my friend replied, his expression incredulous. “You don't think using the English language? Come on, what do you use? Russian??”
My friend Steve seemed to have no other friends. He was openly nasty to people, sarcastic and cruel in his responses, and acidic in his personal judgments. We were nevertheless friends, in part because I saw his candor as refreshing, and in part because I truly admired his immense vocabulary. He used words in his everyday speech that most of us need a dictionary to find, his grammar was flawless and he spoke freely, and well. I believed him to be something of a genius - and yet, he was completely tactless, and that fact didn't appear to bother him at all.
Following the conversation that had just taken place, his fine vocabulary, at least, made sense. Steve had developed it to process his thoughts. He didn't even process thought as I did! The idea had never even occurred to me before - he mentally verbalized everything he thought about, or at least, instantaneously converted his perceptions and processed the appropriate words immediately. It was a staggering difference; for my part; everything I sense, my visual perceptions, incoming audio and olfactory combined, direct my mind to perceive where I am and who and what else is in the vicinity. I may not process a single descriptive term to describe it, but that doesn't prevent me from interacting, speaking with and responding to others.
That conversation opened a topic for rumination that has never left me. If people don't even process thought in the same fundamental way, what other differences in personal perception must be out there? Just look at all the people! We are many, and all of us have different backgrounds. There are so many cultural differences, even wide variations in the ways we must have been raised. Permutations and combinations! The possibilities boggle the mind.
I am similarly amazed by the human ability to adapt and adjust. Maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise, because we all adjust - but again, there seem to be huge differences in how we do it, based on, again, widely varying perceptions. I might judge a response to be humorous while the person next to me takes offense. Someone else might be quickly frightened by a loud noise, while I am inquisitive. So when someone enters the room that we haven't seen before, how might my perception of that person vary from that of my closest neighbor? What additional factors might account for the difference?
Enter, personal experience. Experience colored by all of the other differences inherent in our species - cultural, background, work experiences, family differences, what we have been told, and what we have seen. Who does that person resemble that we already know? What expression is on the face? What gender is the person? I wonder if it is even possible to avoid making snap judgments. The first impression, it is said, is the most important. It probably shouldn't be.
I wonder, do we have any control over that first impression? Well, sure. It makes a difference whether one wears a t-shirt with an expletive emblazoned across the front, or a conservative button-down. It makes a difference whether the hair is unkempt or neatly groomed. Then again, does any of that really matter? If I walk into a roomful of unfamiliar people with a broad smile on my face, someone is bound to think I am a simpleton at the same time someone else thinks I am good-natured, and someone else thinks I am up to something, probably no good.
I never take vacations anymore. But before I really became entrenched in the work force, I did make two cross-country trips, and toured part of Canada. I am so much older now that I've forgotten the specifics of the argument I happened into, while I was in, I think, Arizona. I was a student, and I came upon three other young men who were traveling together. I fear the reader won't believe this, because it sounds like an imaginary setup, but it did in fact happen. These three were all foreign students, one was German, one was French, and one was Italian, and all three spoke accented English. Apparently it was one language they all understood. I walked up to a scenic overlook, and found them standing there by a railing, gesturing toward the sun and to each other while carrying on an animated argument. It was something about the sun and the earth, their positions in space relative to one another, something like that. I probably had a silly grin on my face as I stood and listened. They noticed me listening and watching, and asked me to help them settle the argument. No, really. They called me right into their conversation.
The entire reason I remember this encounter wasn't the argument itself. I was struck hard and immediately by the variations in their perceptions of the problem. Each explained how he saw it. The German student presented a purely mechanical explanation, and it was technically accurate. The French student applied his human perception that showed much more appreciation for the beauty of the arrangement, less technically accurate, but also valid, in its own way. The Italian student went further, and was completely off the beam from a technical standpoint - but from an artistic point of view, he was dead-on. It was all beauty to him. To this day I have to wonder if in fact they had drawn me into it as a psychological experiment.
I must have looked as incredulous as the comparisons seemed to me. As the third student finished presenting his description, I stood dumfounded for a moment. All three stood looking at me, waiting to hear a response. I do remember what I said, because to me it was true. “You are all right,” I said. “I wouldn't choose any of the views you've expressed, exclusive of the others. It wouldn't be complete without all three.”
The three simultaneously responded, each laughingly braying his objections, as they appeared to be waving me away. One of them remarked, laughing, that I was an American, what else should they expect? It was an overall friendly encounter, as I remember shaking the hand of each. We were all about the same age, and I was very pleased to have made the acquaintances, however brief and unfortunately, never to be repeated. Maybe in so doing, we actually had stumbled on the greatest gift America has to offer to the world. If only our government will permit “We, the People” to present it, and not get between us and everybody else, instead.
Dear God. Let's hope someone important reads this, and understands.
Is it you?
You bet it is.
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