Perceptions

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perception.

David Hume, the 18th-century Scottish philosopher, wrote those thoughts in his 1741 work Treatise of Human Nature. Hume is explaining an acute action of the mind when he talks about perceptions. Perceptions can be truths as well as untruths, but we accept them all as facts. They become a piece of our knowing. We use perceptions to dissect our experiences. In that regard, they become influences that direct our emotional and physical behavior. Perceptions rule our actions, and we wait for confirmation from others to continue those actions.

Actions are our direct response to perceptions. Action is energy, so our perceptions are filled with the power of energy. We can build, destroy and complicate situations using a single perception. That perception will linger in our brains until another one enhances it or replaces it. Changing perceptions is not easy. We guard our knowledge even if it has been tainted by faulty associations and influences. We have been taught to be right, and think right, so we rely on our perceptions to confirm our conformity. We even mold our perceptions, so they conform to the perception of others. Their vision of right influences our vision, even when their vision is colored with emotions and fear.

We don’t travel inside of our perceptions and see the infinite field of choices within the mind. We usually pick one or two choices and live them. But this infinite field inside the mind is where realities are molded. It is where the self projects the self into every physical scenario. When we begin to observe the self within our perceptions, the perceptions change. We sense more of who we are. Our cognate sense begins the action that guides our perceptions and the choices within them.