What is real? A look into perception

 “In this treacherous world
Nothing is the truth nor a lie.
Everything depends on the color
Of the crystal through which one sees it”

                - Pedro Calderón de la Barca 

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form"
                - Heart Sutra

"I think, therefore I am"
                - René Descartes 

Above are wisdom-loaded quotes from 15th-century Spanish playwright, Buddhism, and French Philosopher on perception respectively.

And it's not a perception of theirs. With science advancement, this can actually be proven. That what was captured through our senses is interpreted by our brain to form percepts. Percepts vary from one person to another as it is molded by our environment, genetics, culture, both nature, and nurture.

Why do we give subjective meaning to things? We can't we just accept things as sensory inputs with no filters?

Example of perception: 

- When we see a car becoming bigger and bigger, we don't perceive it as the car is enlarging but it is getting closer and closer to us. 

- Why two dots and a curved line when place in a certain position is a smiley face and not just some random scribble.

- How we just know the hand sticking out a window is attached to a body.

- How in a landscape painting, you know that the darker tone shape is supposed to be further away than the lighter tone shape, and both probably depict a mountain. 

Key in optical illusion in Google search and get ready to be bamboozled.

Well, perception does help us survive. 

- How our taste buds and nose detecting food that turns bad

- depth perception so you don't jump off a cliff

- pain on the body that signals that something is wrong, and 

- determining whether that beeping sound you hear is a message or the fire alarm.

Thus perceptions are useful interpretations made by our brains, trying to make sense of all the signals that are incoming, and translate them into something that is logical, explainable, and plausible.

However, translations are just translations. How chemicals in our brains move, how neurons are wired and fired, how our past experiences mean to us all contribute to how we translate, how we perceive. But by no means it's reality. It's just your version of reality. Your brain tells you what you saw, heard, smelled, felt, and tasted. 

So what is real? 

If everything is just perception, then is nothing real?

Exactly. Nothing is real.

Everything has no meaning until we gave it meaning.

While we are unable to overcome perceptions embedded so deeply into our biology, we can still choose to react rather than respond.

Let those perceptions that help us in our daily life, continue to help us.

As for those depreciating, soul-sucking, insufferable and undeserving ones:

- try viewing them without any filter or

- view them with skepticism, from afar, be critical

After all, perceptions are just attached meanings. 

Be aware, let it go. 

Nothing is real.