Of Turkeys and Perceptions
I came across this story twice this week at completely unrelated occasions. I am convinced that either everyone already knows this story, or the world is probably conspiring to let everyone hear it. Today I will share my two cents on it.
A turkey was born in a farm. A man started looking after this turkey. He fed it everyday at the right time. He took good care of it. Weeks went by and the turkey was growing big. It was fed without fail and lived happily.
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The turkey now knows the routine. Or at least it thinks it does.
“The human feeds me everyday. He has not failed a single day. So the human is awesome and I will happily grow bigger.”
And then comes the Christmas. The human is sharpening his knife to kill the turkey. The turkey got it completely wrong.
But in turkey’s defence, it came to this conclusion observing the past behaviour of human. How was it supposed to know better?
This story first reminded of the governments around the world that continue to deceive its own people who voted for them in the first place. Like the turkeys voting for Christmas. But think about it - the message is much more than any political gimmicks.
We make decisions based on our knowledge of things. But most often than not, we don’t have the knowledge we think we do. Like the turkey, we could be missing a huge piece of the puzzle and still think we have it all figured out.
On one level, human perception is heavily constrained. For instance, we cannot see some colours that are visible to most birds and insects. We cannot hear noise above and below a set frequency that the dogs can hear. Similarly, it’s often impossible for us to see the complete picture.
On the other level, human perception differs from person to person. How we perceive a circumstance is coloured by our culture, background and experience. This uniqueness indicates how subjective all our perceptions are. What we perceive, then, are not concrete blocks. They are like the fluid which take the shape of the vessel.
(Sharing this meme, because, why not)
We form our theories and make decisions based on the information available to us. We are vulnerable to making the wrong decisions because just like the turkey, we could always be blind to certain knowledge. Because of this, arrogance of the learned makes no sense. Gaining knowledge is a humbling experience - because the further you go, the more you realise how little you know. It will prove you wrong; it will challenge you and bruise your ego. But that is how you will learn and grow.
I only realise how incoherent my thoughts could be when I start writing them down! But, seriously, thank you very much for reading! If you liked this post, share it with your network. I would love to hear your thoughts - you can give me your feedback by replying to this mail. Signing off until we meet next time!