December
2, 1995
Rest and Perception
We talk about people being rested or fatiqued. But these are not absolutes—instead
we have degrees of fatigue. We can be "plumb tuckered out, just
beat, worn to a nub." We have fatigue from a day's work, and fatigue
carrying over from day to day, have people who are gradually worn down
until they are unable to function, or unable to function at a level
of competence which would make the acting worthwhile.
We have intellectual, aesthetic and sensual fatigue too. We speak of
being tired of doing certain things, feeling as if we are in a rut.
We are tired of eating chicken, tired of repairing the car, tired of
changing diapers. We get tired of looking at the same scene even if
at first we looked at it with admiration and excitement. People even
get tired of kissing and loving the same person and seek diversity,
seek new experience.
Tired?
Rested? Fresh or stale? Old or new? These are all in some way time concepts.
One reason duration is so importance has to do with our sense perceptions,
our way of thinking and doing. We mentally continually abstract and
delete, focus more widely or narrowly on our surroundings depending
on our value system. The new we value more highly than the old, so we
gradually devote less attention to it. Otherwise, we would have little
ability to think at all. There would be too much new material to deal
with. I think this phenomena is best illustrated by our reaction when
first driving up to an intersection. We have so much new information
to sort that we often fail to perceive that we have sufficient time
to move our car into the traffic safely. After we have been at the intersection
a short time, we can block out the unessential information and know
whether it is safe to proceed.
When
data is sorted and categorized, we become less sensitive to it. We think
we know about it. We push it from the center of our attention. This
allows us to rest, to take in new data. We of course by necessity of
processing so much data may at time falsely categorize things, may think
the fawn some sun spotted leaves, think the snake a leaf or stem of
a tree. We may label something in our mind appropriately at the time,
only to have it change, to have it grow old, grow larger. As it changes
slowly, we may fail to notice the change because we have moved it out
of the center of the focus of our attention. Some things of course are
evidently different and demand our attention. The clothes dry on the
line. The flag begins to blow in the wind. The fly lands on our nose.
The tree grows till it scrapes against the house in the wind.
We
change, too. We may be more reluctant to accept this because we do not
wish to accept that we grow less able as perceivers. We hear less well,
see less well, smell less well. So the world may be misperceived as
well as miscategorized. Was that blur a snake, a stick, a golf club?
But might it be true that we may accurately judge our inability to perceive
well and be more attentive to the things about us.
In
what sense can we be said to be more intelligent if we distrust our
ability to categorize things correctly and spend more time looking at
the individual. Again it depends. A burglar looks at the guard dog intently,
but with a different focus and intent than the dog show judge.
Separation?
In
what way are we separate from nature if at all. We of course have no
complete separation at any moment we are taking in air and letting it
out, sweating, giving off radiant heat. We urinate and defecate and
masticate. We touch the ground, packing it down. We rub against things,
wearing them down and leaving our cells. But we still, in spite of all
this, think of ourselves as separate. And we must be, to some extent
anyway. We have skin, a barrier against the entry of many things about
us, things dull or wide, without too much force. But the sharp, the
pointed, the forceful can reach us. We wear gloves and coats and chaps
to keep these things from invading us. And bull nettles and wasps can
get by our guard.
Houses and cars are attempts to build barriers against the invasion
of nature—to separate us.