Day 250 Maps and Names

August 16, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

I have been a member of Servas, an international peace organization, since 1979 and, more recently, Couch Surfing. People from all around the world stay with us—normally for two nights—for free. Why would David and I do this? We are not paid, we give up some privacy, we spend money for gas to pick up visitors and show them around, and we give them meals. The answer—building friendships with people enriches our lives. I used to look at the map and read the place names. Now, instead of place names, these are places where my friends live. We have both hosted and traveled through Servas and Couch Surfing. Sometimes in these travels, we have to step outside our comfort zone. Always we have to be flexible. 

This weekend, Yuichi from Japan stayed with us. We met him more than two years ago through Couch Surfing. We showed him our area but also had good conversations. Because it was such a good connection, we told him we hoped he would return to stay with us again—and he did. Yuichi and other visitors we have had are most interested in experiencing life in its fullness, meeting people from other cultures and understanding cultures that are different from our own. Yuichi has been away from home for more than three years, traveling the globe. His most recent experience was 50 days in Cuba and today he shared photos from this trip. His photos of the Cuban people communicate that people are more alike than unlike. Tomorrow he heads toward Chicago, then Mumbai and then eventually back home in the fall.

If we can manage to forget the “them and us” perspective and rise to the “us” view, so many problems might dissolve. At least we’d be on the same side. 

My gift today was spending time with Yuichi.

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For interesting options in travel and life-enriching experiences, see these links.

http://servas.org/

https://www.couchsurfing.com/

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Perception and Reality

(Photo: Bonnie Schupp) “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. 

Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in.”
Isaac Asimov

A couple days ago, I heard Bill O’Reilly comment, “Perception is reality.” It made me think about an elephant—not a red one but one from India. His statement, although a cliché now, deserves some ontological consideration.

American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) wrote a poem based on an old Indian fable about six blind men who meet an elephant. Each one feels a different part of the elephant and defines the elephant in a different way.

The first touched the side and claimed that elephants were like a wall. The second felt the tusk and thought elephants were like spears. A third grabbed the trunk and believed that elephants were like snakes. Feeling the knee, a fourth one said that elephants were like trees. The fifth reached an ear and stated that elephants were like fans. Seizing the tail, the sixth blind man thought elephants were like a rope.

Each man was partly right but all were also wrong. They each understood one aspect of elephants but none really understood what the entire elephant looked like.

Like the blind men, O’Reilly is both right and wrong.  

The Subjective Eye

Magicians, illusionists, depend on our perceptions leading us to wrong conclusions. This is their livelihood. Even when we know that a magician cannot pull a pot of flowers out of thin air, we are prone to believe it because that’s what we have seen. Because of the perception of Fox News, it is successful. Masters of illusion use the idea that  perception is reality.

O’Reilly is right if we look at individuals. Our perceptions are our personal realities. My reality might not be your reality but yours is real for you.  Your reality is shaped by your sensory perceptions, past experiences,  beliefs and attitudes.  We are limited in our ability to perceive and can only perceive a part of any situation. We see what we expect to see. Then we fill in the blanks with assumptions and this leads to us believing that our limited perception and our assumptions are the whole truth.

Consider eye witnesses to crimes. The same event might be seen by three different people and each one will give different details about what they saw.  The reality of what happened changes depending on the subjectivity of the observer.

I once staged an argument with a fellow teacher in front of a class. Then I had my students write a report of what they saw. Stories varied depending on how students felt about the other teacher or me.

Even the same event might be experienced differently, depending on what a participant brings to the event and what he is expecting. Think about the difference between parents and children and how a particular road trip might be seen as fun by one and boring or tedious by another.

Much of our reality has to do with our attitude and expectations. Look at placebos, for example. Why do some people get better taking fake pills? Because they believe in them.

In the Classroom

Teachers who expect the best from their students often create a reality that conforms to that expectation.  We shape our reality through our attitude and what we expect from ourselves and others.  As an enrichment teacher for three years, I worked with gifted and talented students but I always kept an open mind to possibilities of special education students who had learning difficulties. I remember at the end of one year, a special ed student came into my room and said, “Thank you, Ms. Schupp.” I asked him what he was thanking me for.

“I didn’t know I could do all those things. You helped me see that I could,” he responded.  Insightful comments by someone who supposedly had learning difficulties.

One (among many) student in one of my classes had emotional problems. He was a challenge to work with. I eventually found a solution for those times when he was so disruptive that I couldn’t continue. I told him to step right outside my door and when he thought he could control himself, then he should come back in. He never abused this trust. Later in the year, before he was sent to a special school for students with behavioral problems, he sent me an e-mail thanking me for respecting him.  Once while in the middle of teaching 9^th-graders,  I gave a student the keys to my car so he could retrieve a folder I’d left there. He had a history of car theft but returned to me with the car keys and the folder.

I’ll admit that regardless of expectations, things still happen. My first year teaching, while I was preparing my room the day before students started, two boys who would be in my 9^th grade class showed up asking if they could help. I thought, “What nice kids to want to spend their day off helping a teacher.” Of course they were just checking me out. They assembled a bulletin board for me and when they left, my bag lunch had disappeared from my desk.  Robert Anton Wilson understood these students, “Reality is what you can get away with.” Two months into the school year, one had been arrested for torturing and murdering his sister. But these are the exceptions.

A Positive Reality--Attitude

A friend just lost his leg. His everyday reality has changed but not as much as one might expect. “I’m lucky,” he said. “I have my brains. I don’t need two legs to write at a computer.”  Besides his positive attitude, he’s also working hard at therapy to help himself as much as possible to adjust to the logistics of his new reality.

I see peace as a reality only when individuals feel peace within. This may never happen universally because of the human tendency to grab only one part of the elephant. However, I choose to bring peace and connections to my personal reality as much as possible. I choose to expect the best from people I meet. And I expect that others have something to offer me to enrich my life.

I’m a Servas member and a Couch Surfer. My husband, David, and I open our home to strangers from all over the world. We have also stayed as strangers in people’s homes in many countries.

Many people do not see why we do this. Since 1979, we’ve invited strangers into our home. Every experience has been positive, some more positive than others. These connections with people I originally perceived to be different from me have changed my personal reality. I’ve discovered they are more like me than they are different. They leave our home no longer strangers but friends. These experiences have changed the way I even perceive a map. Now many place names are no longer just names of places but places where friends live.  Life is how one perceives reality. My life is rich in connections and possibilities.

Old Question

So the proverbial question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall? It depends on your definition of reality. If your definition of reality is that someone must perceive the action through the senses, then it didn’t happen. My answer is yes. It did happen. Just because I didn’t hear or see it, doesn’t deny the reality.

When I die, will life in the the world continue? Of course! I hope so.  I may not perceive what is happening but other realities will go on.

Seeing the glass as half full

A glass filled halfway with water can elicit two different responses...two opposing realities.  My glass is half full. and it has made all the difference. This is the reality I perceive.

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Notes:

Servas International

http://joomla.servas.org

U.S. Servas

http://usservas.org        

CourchSurfing

http://www.couchsurfing.org     

The Blind Men and the Elephant poem:

http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html

Kabbalah, Science and the Perception of Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMQnuXdfR04

Eyewitnesses

Stanford University

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm

Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-the-eyes-have-it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMQnuXdfR04

Weather On the Road

Rain! Again!

Looks like a black and white and gray picture day.

Danes ride bicycles, rain or shine.

We're hoping for sun tomorrow as we drive north, up along the coast to our next stop with a Servas traveler, Janice, who stayed with us several years ago.

Have Piano, Will Travel

Enter strangers, leave friends...

Thirty years ago, I opened my home to strangers from all over the world. Likewise, around the globe, people I’ve never met have invited me to stay in their homes. I do this because of a belief in the importance of connections to overcome prejudices and fears. It has been a step toward creating a wonderfully rich life. Part of the richness of my life is reaching out to people who seem to be different from me and then discovering we’re not so different at all.

Today, the traveling piano man, Danny Kean, and his dog Boner just left after staying six nights at our home. My husband David and I had never met him but when he e-mailed me about staying for two nights with us, I told him more than two nights were fine.

And I’m glad he stayed longer.

Danny sold his house and leaped big-time into uncertainty. Most of us are afraid of uncertainty, otherwise we wouldn’t be afraid of death. Confronting uncertainty and immersing himself in the present, Danny has taken a leap of faith that the path he has chosen will continue to enrich his life as well as others.

He travels with Boner next to him and a piano on the back of his red pickup truck. During the day, he stops here and there and brings a gift of music. It might be in a park or on a street corner. It might be on the beach or in front of your house.

A gift of music and Boner too

The gift of music is not merely his piano playing, although he belts out a fantastic rendition of Nola and various high energy ragtime music and soothes the soul with free-spirited improvisations. His

gift is empowering others with creativity and music they may not have known they had in them.

You see, when Danny pulls his truck over, he invites people to his truck. Part of his gift is Boner too. Danny wants the world to meet Boner who is more than 14 years old and who perches on tops of the piano on the truck bed. Boner greets curious visitors who approach and seems perfectly content to be part of this music experience.

Danny invites people to climb aboard the bed of his truck and sit at his piano and play. Most people are shy and are reluctant to do this, probably because they feel they can’t play the piano. Before you know it, Danny has talked them into playing. With gentle persuasion, he encourages them. He says that even one note is music. Then he tells them he’ll count to 60 and they should play until he gets to 60. He counts quietly out loud and somehow untrained fingers begin to create music.

I saw a young woman on her birthday, who reluctantly sat down and played while her three children listened in surprise. I saw a young husband and his pregnant wife play together for their unborn baby. These people had no training but you could see the change in their faces as Danny allowed them to be free, encouraging them along the way. He empowers people to get in touch with themselves through music.

We’ll miss Danny and Boner and their special magic and hope they’ll visit us again.

Servas

I haven’t answered the question about how we go about meeting these strangers all over the world. Thereare three organizations that we’ve had experience with: Couch Surfing, Hospitality Club and Servas.

We’ve had the most experience with Servas which was founded in 1949 by Bob Luitweiler and some friends who envisioned a grass-roots movement toward world peace by people opening their homes to one another. We’d just experienced a second world war and it seemed we couldn’t depend on our leaders to prevent a third world war. It sounds idealistic and perhaps it is, but it works for those who are open to this experience.

I like to tell people that I used to look at a map and see only names of places. Now, after 30 years with Servas, I look at a map and see names of places where my friends live.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely. Broad, wholesome, charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one's little corner of earth. (Mark Twain)

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Highly recommended reading

David's compelling article about The Sun's latest round of lay-offs.