Perception

Articles

Jason Trace

Perception
July 31, 2003

When I was about four or five I can remember always being under the assumption that the moon was following me. I would share my revelations about my lunar stalker with my parents and they would merely smile. My mom would say, “Jason sweetie, the moon is so big it appears to be following you, but it really is not.” It makes me smile to myself when I think back on how egocentric I was, when I was younger. It is also funny to me how many other young children shared this same idea. It is very interesting to me how people perceive the world.

It seems to me that people have the tendency to walk through life with blinders on. I too have been guilty of this in the past. I can remember back to when I was nine years old, and I had a very severe case of asthma. I also had many allergies (that we were not aware of) that triggered violent asthma attacks. These attacks had me scheduled like clock work for monthly hospital vacations of about three to four days a piece.

I still get tight in the chest when I think back on trying to fight for every single breath that I took. I would just as soon forget about having an I.V. serve as my meals because my neck was too swollen to swallow. I remember laying in that stiff hospital bed thinking that I had the very worst luck in the world, and that god was spiting me for reasons I could not understand. I felt that no human being should ever have to deal with the pain and discomfort that I experienced on a monthly basis. I wondered why it was necessary for a child so young to be tested month after month. I believed that no one could possibly understand my pain because it was foreign to everyone except myself. Month after month I lived my own person nightmare.

Being able to look back on those days has provided a great amount of material for me to reflect upon. I can look back and say yes, those were difficult times, but not the most difficult in the history of the universe. While I was laid up in the hospital, I had my blinders on. Perhaps I can be forgiven because of my age and relative lack of maturity, but I was only thinking about myself. Often times people are so consumed with their own lives that they forget to view the whole picture. While I was in my hospital room, my entire world shrunk to about eight by ten. The only thing that was at the forefront of my consciousness was me, myself and I. I never once took time out to consider other children in the world with similar ailments that could not even begin to afford medical attention. I never thought about all the people in the world that would watch on as their loved ones took their final breaths ever. I did not even mull over how this was weighing on my parents who were by my side for the duration of every episode. I did not even think to consider how much of a financial and emotional burden this was for them. My eyes were blurry to the world, and all I was able to focus on was myself.

With age came a little bit more maturity and the ability to realize things are never as bad as they seem. While you are in a moment it can seem like the most significant in your lifetime. The reality is however, that each moment is just a small event that will ultimately characterize your life. I created a little saying for myself to live by when things go wrong for me, and it goes like this, “worse things happen everyday to far better people than myself.” It is not the most pleasant thought in the world, but it is true and it allows for me to remove my blinders when my vision is impaired. By looking at the big picture I am able to see the world more in its true light than the one I assign for it. I think I am better equipped to focus on things as they truly appear rather than the way they seem after a superficial glance.

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About the author: Jason Trace is a senior at Michigan State University who is majoring in English. Email Jason Trace: tracejas@msu.edu

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