Misperceptions

Seeing and Not Seeing

Our brains are miraculous things. They operate at many different levels to propel us through the world. Much of what they do is done in the background, like regulating our heart rate and breathing. They store vast amounts of information that can usually be retrieved quickly, sometimes triggered in unexpected ways. Have you ever smelled something and had memories come back of people or events long ago, like a grade school crush or your grandmother’s cookies?

Of course, sometimes our brains fail us.  Why can’t I remember where I put my keys? What was the name of that friend I haven’t seen in a year?

But all that stuff going on below the level of our conscious attention can also fool us. I remember reading about a group of deep sea divers who spotted some trash littering the ocean floor. They reported seeing empty Budweiser beer cans. They knew it was Bud because of the distinctive red design on the cans.

The problem was that at the depth they were swimming, the available light was insufficient to allow the human eye to see colors. So their brains filled in the missing details. The little guy in the control room said “Hey, that’s a Bud can. It has to be red!”

Our memories, experience, and knowledge combine to influence what we see, hear, smell, feel, and taste in the world around us. Our preconceived notions become filters that allow us to see some things and not see others – even when they’re right in front of us.

One of the benefits of travel – especially travel outside our native countries – is that the experiences we have can teach our brains to accept new possibilities (if we allow it to happen). When we’re in a new part of the world, we might have to learn to see things differently.  For example, our brains have to get rewired to appreciate that a snail – that slimy little slug we see in our gardens back home- can actually be quite delicious when cooked with butter and garlic and served with a nice French wine in a small café around the corner from the Eiffel Tower.

We’ve all heard stories about the “ugly Americans” – those folks who refuse to accept the reality on the ground in a new place and demand that their experience match what they had at home. Bless their hearts, they miss so much and give the rest of us a bad name.  If you really want Olive Garden food, perhaps you should stay home.

Tripping the Breakers

These preconceptions can also trip us up when we choose to live in a new country. We get past the newness of the place, fall into some routines, and then get surprised when something new occurs that doesn’t fit our perceptual frame. It happened to me last week.

Last Friday night at 10:26 (I looked at my watch), as I was getting ready to take Sox out, I smacked the light switch in the front hallway (I was mad about something) and somehow tripped a circuit breaker. 

Actually, two breakers. One for the hallway lights and the main one for the whole apartment. I could reset the light circuit, but couldn’t see how to reset the main one. 

I took the dog out. Mary lit some candles. We washed up by flash lights and went to bed in the dark. I got up the next morning still puzzled, but ready to troubleshoot.  I know how to fix stuff!

There was power in the hallway and the lights were lit on the electric meter, so I figured we had power coming to the house. I had been proactive the day before and charged up my gadgets, so I could activate the hotspot on my phone and connect my laptop. After a 10 minute Google search for something about the breaker, I knew a lot more about where I could buy them, but didn’t find anything that said “push here to reset”!  Apparently that is such common knowledge that it doesn’t need to be published on the internet.

I texted my friend Manny, who I knew was also a handyman type. But he was home recovering from COVID and couldn’t help. He suggested I contact our landlord and ask her to send an electrician.  So I sent her a text and then decided to take another look at the breaker.

There was a red button that didn’t do anything when I pushed it.  There was also a larger black plastic rectangle sticking out of the case.  I had pushed it the night before and it didn’t move.  But I knew that circuit breakers only have one switch.  That’s the way they all worked back in the US.  Right?  So that black thing couldn’t be a button.  

Or could it?

I didn’t have any other options, except to wait for the electrician, so I took a chance and pressed harder this time.

The button moved. The lights came back on. Doh!

Mary came running into the hallway, asking “What did you do?”

“I, uh, pushed the reset button…The one I didn’t think was a button.”

And she gave me that smile I know so well. The one that says, “You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot.”

I’m just happy that I could cancel the service call before the electrician arrived and gave me the same look.

Conclusion

Almost every week we have an experience similar to the breaker incident that teaches us a new lesson about our new environment. Our typical reaction is “Well, sh*t! What’s happening now?!” But slowly we’re beginning to recognize these as learning moments where Portugal is the instructor and we are the restless kids in jardim de infância (kindergarten). Someday, maybe, we’ll grow up.

Don’t hold your breath.

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What lesson has life taught you lately? Share it in the comments below or via the Contact Us form. Maybe we’ll all learn something.

And if you’d like to learn more about how our brains work, or don’t, in our hyperactive world, check out Ezra Klein’s interview with the writer Johann Hari on the Ezra Klein Show podcast. I read the transcript this week. It helped change my perceptions.

I hope you can see things differently this week / Espero que você possa ver as coisas de maneira diferente nesta semana

Mike

The Writer

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