Facts originating from the environment swarm on us every single moment of our lives. Wherever we go, whatever we do, objective reality challenges us with its countless, ever changing characteristics. Many of them (like air temperature or gravity) we have to conform with due to our nature; with others (like the social rules imposed on us) we deal because of our dependence on the community.

However, most of the facts that constitute our surroundings are not forced on us in any way, thus forming a huge pool of potential circumstances we can choose from in building our perception of the environment. How do we do that? What determines the choice of outer circumstances we decide to act upon, as well as their arrangement in terms of importance? And in what way do these circumstances influence our self-perception?

Let’s say that I’m entering a guest room in my friend’s country house where I’m about to spend the next few days. I have never been in this room before. Once I open the door I hear the sounds of a piano wafting through the open window. At the same time I see a beautiful painting hanging on the wall. I also feel the heavy golden door handle which I’m still holding. These are three random facts that may or may not get my full attention. If I’m a music buff I would definitely stop and listen to the music, maybe even try to guess its composer. If I love fine arts I might be more interested in the painting, walking around it to find the best point of view and avoid the reflection of the lamp. But if I am a handyman of some kind I would hardly listen to the music or look at the piece; my attention would be absorbed by the original door handle that I haven’t seen anywhere else before. These three versions of my behavior form three different perceptions of the environment at this very moment, because of the different circumstances my actions would be influenced by. Further on, each of these three choices determining my behavior would be a product of a different self-perception: that of a music fan, a fine arts admirer, or a handyman.

Things might become a little more complicated if I enter the room with the burden of some already existing (preliminary) outer circumstance: since my train has arrived late my friend’s whole family is already waiting for me around the dinner table, which requires that I just throw my luggage in the wardrobe and run back downstairs to join them. Whether I would do that, or spend some time in awe in front of the masterpiece I have been dreaming of for several years now, depends on my self-perception as before, but this time it has to redefine itself first; it has to go through the struggle for predominance between the two currently leading inner circumstances: the necessity to be respectful (to the kindness of the family), and the urge to satisfy my artistic curiosity (for the painting). It is the outcome of this inner fight which would allow my self-perception to sustain its role as the ultimate decision-maker on which fact of the environment to grant more importance to. In other words, as I’m being presented with two equally important facts by the environment, I can act only after I have an idea of their arrangement as circumstances in my perception of the environment; in order to achieve that I first have to refer to my self-perception to come up with a clear arrangement of its circumstances. (On its end, my self-perception would evolve based on the outcome of my actions: the feedback of the results of my behavior would either rebut or reaffirm my inner hierarchy – (chapter II.2.)

Throughout our lives our self-perception is not always presented with such simple cases. Environment often serves us with overwhelmingly contradictory facts that have the potential, if not to paralyze our activity, at least to make our behavior inefficient and inadequate for quite a long time.

Keith is about to finish successfully his first year as a student in agricultural engineering. He has put a lot of effort into his studies not only because he likes the college and his major; he knows how proud that would make his father. Working in a farm his whole life the old man has saved enough money to send his son to one of the best schools in this part of the country. But what makes Keith especially grateful is that his dad didn’t retire even when they found out about his heart condition. The doctors recommended a long rest, but the hard working farmer never changed his routine. All he wanted was to see Keith become an educated person, and this kept him up and running until the boy (and his bank account) was ready for college.

It is in the big city where the ingenuous Keith meets the girl of his dreams. She used to study in the same college as him but her love for music has put her education on hold. Now she is the solo singer in an all male band. Keith has never had a serious girlfriend before. Bearing his small-town inner insecurities, he still cannot fully grasp why she likes him in the first place. She is talented, smart and beautiful, and he, well-built as he is, is too far from leveling up with her in any way. Yet they have been together for seven months already, and she is nice to him most of the time. As an artistic person, she still has her emotional downturns, but within several hours and after a few plates thrown at the wall the harmony between them is always restored. Secretly Keith can’t wait to bring her home and proudly introduce her to his parents. In order to get closer to her he even takes a low-paying job in the bar where her band performs every other night. He is responsible for setting up the sound equipment and fixing the lights for the show. This puts a little more pressure on his studies, especially since the end of the semester is already around the corner, but, hey, he is young and strong, and the nights are long enough for his tests’ preparation.

Today’s news is that his girlfriend’s band has been hired for a two month tour around the state, which everybody considers a great opportunity for their artistic careers. Intoxicated with happiness the whole group bursts into Keith’s dorm room asking him to come with them to serve as the priceless tech hand he has been so far. Initially joining them in their excitement Keith suddenly realizes that the venture coincides in time with his annual examinations. Having in mind his plans for the future, as well as his father’s contribution to it, Keith’s response is that his involvement in the tour is, unfortunately, totally out of the question. Only after witnessing his girlfriend’s reaction does he fathom what he has just said. In a desperate attempt to prevent their obviously impending break-up he runs after her down the street and harnesses his whole eloquence to explain the real meaning of his words. Within three minutes he swears to help her and her friends, whatever that might cost him.

What Keith is experiencing is the “older-than-life” dilemma between two major inner circumstances: love and family. A self-perception problem of this scale cannot be solved overnight. In the face of what he has to sacrifice: the love of his life or the love (and maybe the life) of his father, he is stalled beyond his ability to find a compromise. In any case, whatever outer circumstance he chooses to go along with – the tour or his exams, it will have a ravaging impact on his life. Inevitably, the scars of his choice will stay with him for a long, long time…

If we transfer this phenomenon to the realm of art, one might say that it is our inability to set up our inner priorities in the wake of a complicated outer situation that constitutes drama as a performing arts genre. It’s not accidental that the cast of a play for the last two thousand years has been called “dramatis personae”. People come to the theatre or the movies not for the who-did-what story; what attracts them and makes their experience really unforgettable is the inner movement of the characters, their choices within a devastatingly complicated world. Why otherwise would “Hamlet” still be considered the play of the plays more than four centuries after its creation? Almost until the very end of the plot the main character does little to change the world around him. Yet his name is a byword for inner activity, whose scale comes the closest in literature to explaining the epic, even tragic conflict that can occur in our self-perception due to the overwhelming outer circumstances. It’s a shame that its solution goes often beyond our powers.

© 2009 Peter Budevski

Since we know and feel every day how heavily our survival depends on the environment, we try to turn it into a friendly place. Establishing harmony with the environment is the life goal of every one of us; it is our super-objective. Yet our constant efforts to improve it are not the result of a rational, purely utilitarian mindset. The need to influence the environment is embedded deeply in our nature, and finds its strength from the instinct for self-projection.

That is why we create an idea for an environment which will require and welcome our development. Justified or not, this is the biggest and most powerful stimulus which drives us in our conquest. No matter what the sulkiest croaker says about himself, hope is the feeling everyone wakes up in the morning with, even if it is founded in some distant, obscure, or even non-existent reality. We always try our best to relate the reality of our dreams to the current world. We look for outer circumstances which are in harmony with ourselves, and arrange them carefully at the top of the hierarchy of circumstances, which constitute our perception of the surroundings we live in.

On the other hand the environment often serves us with impediments. From a very early age we have the notion that no matter how strongly we wish our environment to be perfect, we must constantly stay aware of the circumstances standing in our way. Inevitably, these circumstances also become part of our perception of the environment, put there by our self-preservation drive. They constantly compete with the favorable circumstances around us, and their place in our outer hierarchy depends on how surmountable we measure them.

This makes our perception of the environment a repetition of our self-perception, which is constituted by circumstances of both self-projection and self-preservation nature (chapter II.2.). Our perception of the environment is similarly built by two dynamically interacting strings of circumstances, which we view as respectively auspicious and malicious.

Usually it is in our power to choose which one of these two hierarchies to “feed” with additional outer facts. In other words, since everything around us is relative, it is mostly up to us to decide whether the glass is half full or half empty. However, if too many facts coming from the outer world are negative, they can create a significant imbalance in our perception of the environment. In this case their effect upon us is multiplied in a mathematical progression, i.e. they influence us more strongly than their simple summing up suggests. This phenomenon could be called the swarming effect. A swarm is always stronger than the mathematical total of the power of each of its members. In some other cases it takes just one powerful negative fact to achieve similar damage on us. Its destructive efficiency is concealed in the effect of contamination: the strongly malevolent circumstance charges other outer facts with extraordinary negativity, multiplying its devastating impact on our inner stability.

The swarming effect, as well as the effect of contamination are also valid in case of accretion of positive outer circumstances. Often several auspicious occurrences in a row, or an oversized positive experience can overpower the troubling facts surrounding us, and weaken their ability to become influential circumstances.

Five years into her life as a divorcee Cindy is feeling worse than ever. Long gone is the relief of getting rid of her abusive husband, as well as the excitement of starting her life anew. At forty-seven her chances of being discovered by the man of her dreams – whoever that might be – seem more distant than ever. Her daughter’s presence in her life, which she has always considered a blessing, doesn’t help. The kid is already a teenager, with a schedule becoming more and more active with every coming month, which further deprives her mom of the little privacy and free time she has had since the divorce.

But does Cindy need any free time at all? Except for two old girlfriends she doesn’t have anyone in particular to share her time with. Her online dating strains hardly lead to anything, and the all-men’s parties at her house accumulate a bunch of regulars who are either married or aren’t worthy of her female attention. The tension from her private life starts flowing into her job relationships. For the last two months three customers of the travel agency where she works have complained about her attitude. Recently she also catches herself commenting disapprovingly on her daughter’s first boyfriend whom she initially claimed to like; this stirs a logical tension into the mother-daughter relationship.

These days Cindy feels like she is living in a world full of hostility. She is already afraid to make any effort outside of her limited daily routine knowing it could easily lead to a new failure – big or small.

Unfortunately she is right. Her established pattern of interpreting the surrounding facts makes her interaction with them sore and inefficient. Cindy’s case is a typical example of how a certain powerful fact which one perceives as negative – the absence of a partner – can contaminate with negativity other unrelated facts and throw the person in the whirlpool of low self-esteem and desperation. At this point of her life only a powerful new fact from the environment can prevent Cindy from continuing her spiral down towards more and more unhappy encounters. It could be the sudden appearance of her prince – whoever that might be – on one of her boring all-men’s soirées, or a big win at the lottery, or a spiritual experience on her long trip organized by her travel agency to promote a new destination. Whatever that fact is, if it is strong enough it will cause the same contamination effect that brought her here in the first place. The only difference is, it will take the reverse direction. This could turn things around to such an extent that Cindy might suddenly become charming again, kind and caring for her customers, loving the time spent with her old girlfriends and even liking the boy her daughter is in love with.

Our inner balance depends on the proportion of auspicious and malicious outer circumstances, which has a direct impact on our self-perception. On its turn our self-perception chooses among the outer facts the ones on which to load positive or negative meaning, and turn into auspicious or respectively malicious circumstances. Our inner stability resembles the atom, whose energy “independence” occurs when the number of positively charged particles, the protons (the benevolent outer circumstances) matches exactly the number of the negatively charged ones, the electrons (the malevolent outer circumstances). If one of these two groups dominates, we become ions – electrically charged atoms; like them we start being selective in our bonding, losing the freedom to move and stay independent of our moods or biases.

© 2009 Peter Budevski

A circumstance in itself is a fact, which exerts a certain influence on our action. Any fact, constituting any reality (present, past or imaginary) can become a circumstance to our current action, i.e. a part of our perception of the environment.

Facts which have remained in our memory can be extremely powerful circumstances. How does this work? Our memory stores certain facts for us because at the time of their occurrence they related in one way or another to our self-perception. A certain situation (combination of circumstances) coming from the outside can trigger our sense memory or create associations which might cause the reemergence of the fact from our past and transform it into a circumstance, influencing our action. This fact might have never disappeared as a circumstance from our perception of the environment; yet its place in the overall hierarchy has been dependent on the importance of the “competing” circumstances, and might change with time.

A couple of months after the unfortunate event in his girlfriend’s apartment (chapter III.2.) Mike and his buddies Ken and Fred are sipping their cocktails on the second floor of the town bar. Suddenly, after a heated debate downstairs, a fight erupts. Upstairs, a frightened silence falls over the tables. Everybody looks tensely at each other, not knowing what to do. For each of the three young friends the situation is slightly different though. Ken doesn’t seem to even notice what’s going on. He’s having a good time, and there’s absolutely no reason for him to stop what he’s doing. Being six and a half feet tall and over 270 pounds, he doesn’t have to worry – he can handle any gadfly who dares to bother his party. Obviously, for Ken the fight is just a fact, which doesn’t relate to any of the circumstances of his self-perception, hence it doesn’t become an outer circumstance. Fred, who is also a well-built guy, doesn’t look so calm. Being a jiu-jitsu fighter, he shouldn’t have a reason to feel threatened either, yet the noises from downstairs seemingly distract him. He fidgets in his chair, his hands nervously tapping the table. Fred’s perception of the environment has turned the fact of the fight into a circumstance. His self-perception includes the understanding that it is his human duty to intervene and pacify every violent situation he becomes a witness to. In fact, this inner circumstance is part of his code of honor… But it is not him who suddenly jumps from his seat and rushes downstairs. That’s actually Mike, who, short and slim as he is, should be the last of the three to itch for a beating. As we already know, he is not a fighter, and the only sport he has ever been involved in was… well, chess. Why would someone like him risk his good health to intervene in a fight for no apparent reason? What is the inner circumstance that has outweighed the estimation of his insufficient physical strength (the natural and most relevant circumstance to top his self-perception at this moment)?

Maybe we should look for another outer circumstance (the trigger) – the one that not only shoots the fight to a top position in Mike’s perception of the environment, but even turns it into an event, so that he interrupts his chat and runs to the fight scene. What if among the scared and stunned visitors on the second floor, at a table in the corner there sits his former girlfriend with another guy? Since the breakup she has barely talked to him, and at first he suffered miserably. Later he let himself getting engulfed in his half-term session, and after that intentionally started to take more extracurricular assignments than required. All this, together with the prolonged hours at the gym exhausted him enough so that he had almost no time and energy to think and whine about the love he lost. Life was starting getting back on track. But today her showing up in the bar with a male companion withal plays a bad joke on Mike. The whole excruciating pain from before overtakes him again, this time even more severe and unrelenting. In a flash he grasps how much she means to him, and how pathetic his attempts to get over the love of his life have been. The two outer circumstances – her presence in the bar and the exploding fight – mix up in Mike’s head in an almost fatal combination, which changes significantly his self-perception. His self-protection is completely outrun by his long procrastinated self-projection – to an extent close to hysteria. Why otherwise would the reasonable awareness of his physical insufficiency be substituted in his inner hierarchy by the burning necessity to jump in the middle of a fighting scene where he can be very seriously injured?

Mike sees the scuffle not as a danger, but as an opportunity to show the courage he lacked before so that he can redeem himself, and hopefully get his girlfriend back. The determinant cause for this extreme behavior is, of course, his girlfriend’s absence from his life. It has been losing strength for quite a while, giving way to other circumstances in Mike’s perception of the environment and gradually turning into a mere fact from his past. It takes only the accidental encounter in the bar to completely change everything, to wind this circumstance back in its priority position and throw Mike into a totally alien and reckless behavior.

Facts that are non-existent in reality could work in a similar way. The most obvious examples are the ones we create due to ill understanding of our environment. A whole range of reasons could drive us to the wrong conclusions about it, from simple misunderstandings to prejudices to unsolved inner conflicts and complexes (chapter II.5.). Imaginary facts of this kind become circumstances in our perception of the environment more often than it seems at first glance. They could also be more harmful than an innocent daydream that makes us feel better, or the amusement park rides whose fake worlds charge us with real emotions. From the husband falsely convinced of his wife’s affair to the racists and xenophobes who see other humans as bearers of negative and dangerous qualities, mankind has greatly suffered from its imagination. On the other hand, of course, there is art and especially religion which have fed humanity with imaginary facts for ages. Throughout history for many, many people, these facts have become important, sometimes even crucial circumstances.

© 2009 Peter Budevski

Our perception of the environment is strongly individual due to our individual self-perception. The subjective arrangement of the circumstances in it is a result of our inborn inclinations, qualities and preferences, on one hand, and our experience, on the other.

Many of the differences among us in terms of the way we digest the environment derive directly from our genes. We like things that are often disliked by others because our natural tastes, unlike theirs, make these things attractive to us, and vice versa. But we also adore or fear other things because our memory has stored the information of how sweet and attractive, or respectively how unpleasant and dangerous to us personally such things can be; we plunge into or avoid different ventures to a different extent than others, because our conscious assessment of our own strengths or weaknesses is different than theirs. This is how our self-knowledge, which combines our innate tastes and our experience, determines the degree of significance we grant to the various circumstances of the outer world. Therefore, from the hierarchy of these circumstances, which is visible through our behavior, one can judge our self-perception.

Mike and his girlfriend are studying for a college test in her apartment. It is late in the afternoon when they hear the slam of the front door. A couple of seconds later the teenage brother of Mike’s girlfriend appears in the living room. He is crying and rambling something that no one can understand. After a while it becomes clear that three older boys have just apprehended him in front of the building, slapped him several times across the face and taken away the twenty bucks he had in his pocket. Obviously now the boy isn’t as much scared as he is humiliated. His adolescent pride and dignity has just been unscrupulously violated, and his sister starts worrying that this threatens to turn his whole fragile world upside down. That’s why her whole attention turns to Mike, as the Man in the situation. But his reaction is nothing like what she expects. After a few more questions and a long silence, instead of jumping from his seat and darting outside to deal with the gangsters, he goes back to his notebook. His girlfriend is angry and disappointed. After taking care of her brother she barely says a word until Mike leaves. Less than a week later she breaks up with him.

Of course, she knows that Mike isn’t a bodybuilder. She knows that especially when she is present Mike feels uncomfortable around strong muscular guys, and she guesses that he is pretty sensitive about his short stature. But she also believed that he loved her, and has naturally admitted looking after her to be one of his top priorities. Now she understands how wrong she has been. As it turns out Mike’s self-perception has the circumstance “I’m unable to fight and I dread fighting” on a higher position than “I love her and I would do anything for her”. Probably these two inner circumstances have never had to compete with each other before, so the result must be a total surprise not only to Mike’s girlfriend, but also to Mike himself. The interesting part is that Mike’s girlfriend is able to grasp the real Mike (or his true self-perception) by revealing his perception of the environment in a critical moment: since he obviously chooses the circumstance of the upcoming college test over the circumstance of the incident, the latter is obviously not so important, which obviously means that everything related to her, as dramatic as it may be, is not so important, hence she herself is not so important to Mike! Which girl would stay in a relationship after having made these conclusions?

Our self-perception is visible through every single choice we make from among the circumstances of the environment. Even within the smallest, most insignificant situation one can distinguish a part of our inner essence. The genius of Konstantin Stanislavski discovered this interrelation more than a century ago. His famous Method of physical actions is based on this notion. It affirms that the inner life of the character with its most subtle nuances can be experienced by the actor and revealed to the audience by building up a precise score of his/her physical behavior. Why? Our physicality is a demonstration of the individual preferences we have towards the circumstances that constitute the environment. By observing our physical life one can gain a clear impression of our preferences – the hierarchy in which we arrange the outer circumstances. Since our perception of the environment (or hierarchy of outer circumstances) is interlocked with our self-perception (chapter I.1.), the physical actions we perform reveal our inner life in all its complexity.

Let’s take a look at the simplest physical action from our everyday life: our gait. The way we walk is not just a display of our physicality; it is molded by our psychology as well. The proof can often be found in the weird way we keep balance, or the pattern of “decorating” our walk with all kinds of unnecessary movements that go beyond what Mother Nature requires from us. These “additions” are a direct result of the way we perceive the environment, and speak volumes about our self-perception.

The first and most obvious sign of our inner life comes from our body posture: it indicates, even to an unprejudiced eye, whether our self-perception is topped by a self-projection or a self-preservation circumstance. People who are driven by the urge to project themselves are not shy of revealing how their body functions; they openly enjoy their physicality. The impression some of them give is as if they walk on air. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who hate or fear their surrounding world. They often have their shoulders slumped forward, or their chest is sunken, or the palms of their hands are turned backwards. Their whole posture indicates discomfort; their body looks like being pulled systematically down towards the ground.

Once we set off the careful observer would reveal even more about us: from the indications of which segments of the environment we perceive as important he could successfully guess on the specific circumstances that crown our self-perception. The young girl who passes the crowded open space restaurant with an alluring swagger obviously considers the world a place filled with men appreciative of female beauty; hence one of the important circumstances of her self-perception is her seductive appeal. The lawyer who thrusts himself forward even while shopping with his wife obviously views humanity as members of a stupid jury who need intrusion into their physical space in order to return to their senses; his self-perception is dominated by the circumstance of his persuasion weakness. The stumbling doorman at night who raises the blood pressure of every late arrival to the building by walking slowly to unlock the front door obviously wants to underline his importance and reinforce his authority in a world that passes him by with indifference; his self-perception is being consistently eroded by the inner circumstance of his own insignificance.

A famous instance on the role of the external traits as a bridge to the inner essence of a character is Stanislavski’s description of his work on the part of Dr. Stockman from Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People”:
“On their own accord my second and third fingers used to stretch forward for more persuasiveness – as if to implant into the interlocutor’s very soul my emotions, words and thoughts. All these needs and habits appeared instinctively, unconsciously. Where did they come from? Later on I accidentally revealed their origin: several years after Stockman’s creation, at a meeting in Berlin, in a scientist I had known from before I recognized my fingers from Stockman.” (“My Life in Art”)

© 2009 Peter Budevski

Perception of the environment is the way we view and understand our surroundings. It is the other half (next to self-perception) of our general view on reality. In its essence it reflects the importance that we grant to the various parts of the world we live in. Streaming through the attitudes in our behavior, it is an extremely powerful indicator of our individuality.

Our perception of the environment is visible through every single act we perform. Take a look at a house built by its owner. From its appearance you can tell a lot about how he perceives the area he lives in, i.e. his immediate physical environment. First there is the local weather. What does he like or dislike about it? Does the house have a roof, or it is crowned with a flat terrace; are its windows small, with wooden shutters, or they are wide and tall; is the front door big and heavy, or there’s just a light glass framework in front of you? All of these architectural elements are designed, apart from the style, to interact with the facts of the environment to the best interest of the inhabitants.  Because of this interaction those facts turn into circumstances. The steep roof would prevent the snow from settling on top of the house (circumstance #1); the shuttered windows could be a protection from the strong wind (circumstance #2); the dark paint on the outside probably serves to keep the scarce warmth coming from the sun inside during the winter (circumstance #3)…

But the weather is just a separate feature of the environment. The house has plenty of adjustments that speak even more about the individual’s perception of his surroundings. The many locks on the thick door are an obvious safeguard from thieves (circumstance #4); the tall wall fencing the garden prevents the invasion of wild animals (circumstance #5); and the amulet above the gate chases away the evil spirits (circumstance #6)…

Through further observation you can come up with dozens of other outer facts the person in charge has decided to deal with. Some of them he has tried to avoid, others, to strengthen, so that he can get the best out of the environment. In both cases the facts turn into circumstances, because they have influenced, in this particular case, the design of the house, or, in other words, the direction of the owner’s action of building a home. This is exactly how our perception of the environment operates. We constantly evaluate the facts surrounding us, and work on overcoming or using them, thus transforming them into circumstances. These circumstances join a hierarchy of other ones and arrange themselves in correspondence to their importance. The more important the circumstance, the better its chance of receiving more of our attention and to influence our actions.

Even though some circumstances could be equally essential to many people (all houses in the area have sheer roofs), the judgment of a circumstance in terms of its significance is strictly subjective. If our homeowner was obsessed with earthquakes more than the weight of the snow on his roof, he would have planned and budgeted the additional supporting pillars first, and only after that, if there were some money left, would he consider the steep roof. Also, it doesn’t matter if the fact one deals with is commonly acknowledged or not; evil spirits might have a more significant presence in somebody’s hierarchy than, say, robbers.

Like our self-perception, the perception of the environment is constructed by circumstances, arranged in a certain subjective hierarchy of significance. This gradation doesn’t include the facts from our surroundings that don’t concern us; it doesn’t include the facts that we instinctively connect with either. It regards only the circumstances with which we consciously communicate, or in other words, about which we make conscious choices. Air, for instance, is one of the most important facts of the outer world; but since we breathe by instinct, in an everyday situation it definitely doesn’t have anything to do with our perception of the environment.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly how we can trace the origin of the infix “life situation”. Since “situation” is a conglomerate of circumstances, expressions like “I have to improve my life situation” target some of the circumstances in one’s perception of the environment. In this particular occasion the exclamation, translated into scientific language would sound like: “I’m unhappy with my current priorities; I have to stop relying on circumstances which put me down, and elevate the status of some previously neglected ones, which I have to either confront or give my support to.” Unfortunately, we don’t give the scientific approach too many chances…

Let’s play a little longer with the-house-of-our-dreams example. If we embrace the notion that one’s perception of the environment is visible through his premises, a logical question arises: why are there so many identical houses in almost every town? The reasons might be strong circumstances coming from the location of the area (geography), the necessity of aesthetic harmonization of the different parts of the whole (style), or the townspeople’s inner need to go with the flow (fashion). The last possibility is, of course, the least desirable, because individuality is being replaced by some abstract aesthetic authority. It is still permissible if the result is tolerable; yet fashion always invades and obscures the territory of the individual perception of the environment, preventing the person from freely expressing his/her unique personality.

While developing his thesis about creative individuality Michael Chekhov gives an example about several artists who supposedly have to paint one and the same landscape. He introduces the suggestion that the finished paintings will be quite different from each other since each of them will reflect the creative individuality of its author. “Their pictures will tell us,” continues Chekhov, “that one of them was more charmed by the atmosphere of the landscape, another by the beauty of the form and line, the third by the language of contrasts, and so on.” The atmosphere, the form and line, the language of the contrasts, etc. are respectively the most important facts in the individual vision of the artists, i.e. in their perception of the environment. They see and paint everything in front of them faithfully, but their creative individuality emphasizes the elements they are mostly impressed with. The creation of these “entirely different pictures” means that the photographic facts of the objective reality have not only been graded, but also turned into circumstances by the authors’ interpretation.

In our trials to grasp the world around us we can be such artists as well… As long as we don’t go with the flow.

© 2009 Peter Budevski