Reading Something Into It

We humans have a quality that most other creatures don’t: an inclination to interpret our sensory experiences through the use of symbols that we create in our heads. While most animals interact in a very direct way with their environment, we translate our experiences into symbolic terms that get stored somewhere in our brain. It’s those symbols we deal with, not necessarily the real thing itself.

For example, I look at the full moon and I see craters and maria—casting different highlights across the moon’s disc, creating patterns. My mind—particularly my cultural mind—tends to interpret those patterns in a certain way. An animal, in contrast, just sees patterns. If I was told as a child that what I see is a “Man in the Moon,” I learn to interpret those features as a face. It becomes so familiar to me, I periodically have to remind myself that what I’m seeing is a lunar landscape, not some open-mouthed visage in the sky.

I was an adult before I became aware that other cultures saw something quite different in the full moon. Some see a rabbit, some an old woman, etc. Several years ago I tutored a Mexican-American young lady during her high school years. Together we once explored a book about Mexican mythology and read about the “Rabbit in the Moon.” I explained to her my culture’s perspective. She tried hard but could not see the man. With practice, I began to see her rabbit.

There are, of course, countless examples of contrasting perceptions of different cultures. Even within a particular culture people of different backgrounds will carry disagreeing interpretations. Someone from a high-income bracket will tend to look upon a welfare mother quite differently than a social activist will. A Pakistani Muslim perceives Mideast problems very differently from an American mainstream Christian. A Wall Street banker’s cut on our economy differs from a factory worker in Ohio. A common thread through these contradictory perceptions is the symbolism we’ve been taught.

The viewpoint of any one of us is fragmentary; our senses register only a portion of the reality of our world. We grasp that fragment of reality, transform it into a symbol, make up a story about it, and stash it into our imperfect memory. When we repeat this a few times (often ignoring an increasing amount of reality as we do), our symbols, our stories, get cast in erroneous concrete. When we encounter someone from a different background, we’re often struck by how strange and misguided their symbols and stories are. It can be very hard to let go of our beliefs, to accept that they are not necessarily the correct or complete ones.

So I sit and gaze at the full moon, trying to see the rabbit as readily as I see the man. Sometimes I think I can even make out the old lady.