Perceptions and Reality: What Do We See When We Look at the World?

Cathy Presland
3 min readJun 10, 2021

And what’s it actually made of?

Photo by author.

How’s It Going?

I posted this cute picture (well cute to me) on social media this week, snapped on a bike trip, with a witty comment about sharing the lady’s pain over her lockdown locks.

It got a few laughs, who doesn’t like a nice animal picture?

But I also know that any presumption on my part, is completely that, it’s on my part.

I saw one interpretation, who knows what you will see, and, of course, we neither of us have any idea what the experience of being photographed was like for the lady in the picture.

Seeing What’s On Our Mind, Not What’s in Our World

There’s a deeper message here though.

My first thought was,

How sweet!

And I leapt to make a connection between the scruffy straggly wool, and my experience of months without a haircut.

But this is my experience…

I have no idea whether this lady was eyeing me with curiosity or fear (sheep are prey animals so at some point I expected her to turn away, which she did.)

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Cathy Presland

What if making an impact was part of your everyday? Stories to light up your soul. Read more and free courses: https://cathypresland.com/