Perception Is the Filter by Terhi

Each morning starts by waking up: suddenly we are conscious and awake, sensing the linen, our limbs, whether there is light around us or darkness, if it is cold or warm in the room or where-ever we are. We stretch and slowly regain full consciousness. A new day, how does it feel, shall it be a good day or a miserable piece of shit… Someone rushes on while someone else slowly rises and makes tea with warm scones and enjoys every moment of this unique morning.

Someone gets lost while walking in an unknown city and someone else never gets lost whether in a town or in a forest. Their spatial perception is different. Is that a genetic feature or something we learn later, who knows.

During our day we meet people, different people: some we like, some we detest, some we trust and some not. Our feelings about them reflect to our work, and projects with people we like and trust tend to succeed while the ones with those we mistrust tend to whither… yet it is said that a good enemy is better than a bad friend.

Sweet, mellow and pretty makes me sick as does dark, fussy and shortsighted. Intelligent, clear and beautiful, yes! And do remember, that between minimum and maximum there is optimum, because that is important.

Time passes, people die and their world dies with them. We shall all have a day, when we are the only ones that have experienced something: the others have died. Memories remain. Life turns to history. I remember summers when I was twelve, thirteen I spent with a little cousin of mine in their summer villa by lake Saimaa in Carelia. Huge thunderstorms when the trees fell and it rained horizontally, the wind beating the waves in the air. Two little girls there all alone and not a bit afraid. Excitement! When we didn’t get the damper out we opened the door and windows, took out the rings on the oven, and kept an open fire there… The sun, the cliffs, the lake… and then the boys, first kisses, nights together… She died years ago to cancer. I was there till she lost consciousness… Now there is only me to remember, if anything is worth remembering… My father… My grandmam and papa and their home – nothing left but some fleeting pictures in me mind, feelings, colours, scents, tastes, touches…

How do we perceive the world other than words… and what finally do words matter compared to everything else! Oh, but they do, because they are the gate to everything else in the beginning. How our parents talk to us when we are very young, explain and show the surroundings? Do they warn of everything or do they push us towards new experience? Do they tell stories or is it just keeping discipline… it has a great meaning in relation with our later perception of the world around us. Does it matter who talks to us? Whether it is a mother or father, nanny, someone in kindergarten or daycare or in school? I think it matters because the people closest to us know us best and can pass on feelings and details others don’t. Sincerity is also to account for and the professional daycare tends to classify children according to the status of their parents in the society. Yes, I know they deny it, but when you ask the children at the age 16-19 the memory of discrimination is distinct.

Our Western civilization is based on facts and science, and trade. No life can be built on these. No life exists without imagination, feelings and memories. But they are not contrary but completing: no science could evolve without imagination and no civilization could hold together without feelings.

 

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After studying biology and cinematography in the ’70s Terhi has worked as a photographer, visual designer, taught visual arts and occasionally also written some articles, manuscripts and even poetry.

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