Filtered

I spent most of today at home. This morning I watched a wild turkey strolling around the front yard; during my Tai Chi set on the back deck the wind was blowing gently, the myriad shades of green were all around me - all in all very pleasant.

It struck me as I moved through the day that very little of my life comes at me unfiltered, and the more I considered it, the more I realized that a lot of what I experience each day is filtered through one type of media or another. Radio, TV, internet - all the information I get was reviewed by one or several people; all I get to see and hear is what has been approved, cleaned up, rearranged, and otherwise manipulated by persons unknown. What didn't make it through their process might as well not exist as far as I'm concerned.

As far as that goes, I don't usually experience temperature, air movement, sunlight or starlight directly either.

This filtering process is not without its uses, of course. The sheer amount of data we are exposed to each moment makes it impossible to make sense of it without some process of ordering, winnowing, keeping or discarding, etc. The danger comes when we forget that the filtering process is operating (which is pretty much all the time). Sometimes I am jolted by the reminder. I remember seeing a talk on TED.com by a person connected with the research division of the US military; she was demonstrating some of the latest advances. About halfway through her presentation I had to remind myself that she was not, in fact, showing us the latest advances; she was showing us a couple of things that she had permission to show. The latest advances were certainly not part of the presentation.

This topic needs more reflection, so I'm stopping for now. Definitely need to return to this subject.