Importance of Perception And why you must challenge your thoughts?

“Are you sure you want to watch Hannibal? You know, it is not the kind of show you usually watch. So, you might not like it.”

Yes, I want to experience something different. And that turned out to be really different for it did challenge my thoughts.

As I started watching one of the very popular American T.V. shows, Hannibal, I came across a cute guy who is a really good crime profiler; thanks to an unimaginable gift. He looks at the crime scene and just imagines what no one could have and thus, solves the case. I kinda started liking the guy but as soon as that happened, I discovered that he wasn’t the lead character of the show or he wasn’t the main center of attraction.

There was another guy, who was a psychologist and a cannibal and happened to be more cunning, more impressive and more important in the show.

Now, how did it challenge my thoughts?

1. What? The show isn’t named after the good guy?

I grew up watching hindi movies in which the hero is always the good guy, fighting for the glory of his family, fighting for his love and his dignity. Now, in Hannibal, the ‘Hannibal’ isn’t really a hero. Hannibal is a villain who is so inhumane that he eats humans. That definitely goes against what picture I usually create in my mind regarding the best characters in a show/movie.

2. Hannibal is the one who has an upper hand in the show  (in the beginning)

Won’t give you the same example but it is pretty obvious that the lead character is usually the most intelligent or handsome guy in the show or he does become by the end of it. What about this show? The guy, who is cute and good, happens to be the target/victim of Hannibal. And it is so uneasy to accept that. Maybe that’s why I never watched the Bollywood Blockbuster Ghajini starring Aamir Khan because as soon as I was told that Ghajini was the name of the villain, I was offended. I just couldn’t accept it.

What’s the problem?

PerCepTion. We all like to judge others and make a view point on one thing or other. Just give one topic to us and we would have something to say about it, even if we don’t know about the issue at all. Why?

Our perspective is seldom backed by reasoning and rational approach. Most of the times our perspective depends upon what we have been doing in our life so far, who are the people that surround us and what’s the perspective of the general public.

Why don’t we like to take the pain of digging things up and building a perspective from scratch? Why don’t we think before we develop a perspective towards something? Why don’t we let ourselves challenge our thoughts? Why don’t we accept being a part of change?

Challenging your thoughts isn’t easy and often you would get offended by what you hear. You would get offended by thoughts that don’t match your perspective. And before you can realize, you would again be swimming in a pool of people who just don’t try to understand things. They just perceive things and like to keep it that way.

So, is this the problem? That we don’t challenge our thoughts? No.

The problem is that because of such behaviour, we are creating hurdles in our personality development. How? When you try to understand something, you think about it, you search about it, you discuss it with an open mind and once you have done all that, you get plenty of information in bits & pieces that can be compiled together to create a real picture.

Now, if you’re lucky enough, you gain what we call ‘wisdom’. You develop and you would gain the power to make this society a better place. And that’s what we all should crave for.

Often, arrogant people like me, would let the information stay in bits & pieces for we just can’t accept that our perceptions could have been false or biased. But that’s the trait which affects our personality development and probably that’s why arrogance isn’t considered a good trait for it ultimately turns you into a retard who would never update his brain with facts and true information.

But watching Hannibal helped me challenge my thoughts, it caused a crack in my perspective which is going to make me question a lot of things and that would help me understand things in a better and rational manner.

Find your Hannibal. Find something that can help you challenge your thoughts and spend some time on it. Do something that you don’t like. Look for perceptions that you won’t agree with and then try to understand why they’re so. Challenge yourself. Challenge your thoughts and be a wiser person.