Perceptions

This last week has brought an influx of thoughts and emotions.  I am still trying to sort through all of them and make sense of it all.  I'm sure in this instance, there will be a lot that will get left unsettled.  With the death of a friend, at a young age and unexpected, there are many questions that are going through my mind.  Yet, those questions will most likely go unanswered.  We will never know the why, and perhaps that is the most troubling.  In this instance, there are three stories to be told, yet we will only ever hear two of them.  Part of me doesn't want to know the truth, the answers from the other two stories.  I, for one, would rather live with what I picture as the why, not what others claim is the truth behind the whole event.  But that's me.  Others will crave the truth, seek it out at all costs, and in the end, it will do nothing to change the course of events.  What is done is done and nothing can bring back a friend from the grave.  There are many perceptions of what happened, depending on who you are and whether you knew the deceased or not.  (For those of you still wondering what I am talking about, I am talking about the death of Matt Lofaro last Wednesday).   Those perceptions go beyond the incident itself to the people involved, their decisions, and what led to those decisions that they made.  There are those, as I mentioned over the past week, who will view Matt as a criminal, a doped up person in need of cash, a low life.  And those same people will hail the cop as a hero, as doing his job, as ridding the world of another stupid kid.  Yet, those perceptions are based upon one instance in a lifetime of decisions that were made by those two individuals, the cop and Matt.  My perceptions are completely different.  Knowing Matt, I view the whole incident as a prank gone bad, a stupid decision that led to his death.  And for the cop, I view him as a trigger happy fool.  Yes, my perceptions are based upon my knowledge of Matt leading up to the incident and knowing that he would never do something like that.  Yet, if I was in another person's shoes and Matt was not my friend, would I look at it the same way or would I make assumptions about the people involved.  Having had this happen to a friend of mine, it makes me think that I will reserve assumptions in the future until I know more about an individual, but will I?  Or will I immediately cast judgement based upon my perceptions of a situation and no real knowledge of the people involved. 

 

It sucks that a whole life can be upturned and spun on its head based upon one instance in a person's life.  Many people will look at only one instance without regarding the whole picture and make their assumptions.  People will perceive only what they read and see and anything else leading up that one point will mean nothing.  I know that there have been a number of points in my life when I was younger where if something had happened, people would have drawn assumptions about me that would have been completely incorrect.  Their perceptions about me would be faulty and incomplete, yet the majority of people will never look past the headlines, never dig deeper to know more about the people involved, and simply cast their judgement based upon a sliver of information.  I for one will do my best in the future to never judge a person based upon one instance in their life.  Its not an easy thing to do, to reserve perceptions and assumptions when access to the complete person is not always there.  Often times we never really know the entire person we are making assumptions about.  Whether it is in the news or not, whether it is a crime or just an instance in which we pass by a person, we perceive things about them, create our assumptions, and go on our merry way thinking we are correct.  How often are we wrong though?  How many times do we make assumptions, cast judgement, when our assumptions and judgements couldn't be farther from the truth?  Often times, we never know.  Perhaps we would all do well to take a little more time when regarding others and their situation.  Perhaps we should reserve judgement and not make assumptions.  Yet those things are hard to do when we live in a knee jerk society where everything happens in a split second and then is gone.  We rarely have time to figure out the truth behind a situation or a person.  We don't want to invest our efforts in something that we perceive as the truth yet could be just a fairy tale.  Yet, the damage we can do to others is irreparable sometimes and it speaks to the fact that we should slow down, take a little more time when regarding others, and not be so quick to pass judgement on them.  Yet many will continue on as they were, hurting others with their assumptions and faulty perceptions.  We can get angry at them, or we could move on with our lives.  I for one, as angry as I might want to get, will most times choose to move on and make my own life better.  Especially now, after the death of a friend with many casting judgement upon him, will choose to move forward and pay no mind to any who look down on him.  I know the truth about Matt and that is all that matters.  I don't know if any of this made sense, but I did the best I could to sort it all out.  Oh well, on to another day.