    13

    13

    The Perceptual Trick That Manufactures Devils

    Perception is a highly selective process.  We see and vividly

    remember some things that pass before our eyes.  We ignore many

    others.  And some, we work to actively deny.  What happens to those

    realities which consciousness athletically shuns?  They become part of

    the process that makes the notion of an enemy click.

    We struggle for position on the hierarchical ladder, trying to get

    as  close  to  the  top  as  we  possibly  can.    Very  few  of  us  arrive  there.

    When the wriggling and kicking is over, most of us  find ourselves

    some place in the middle.  We are blocked out of the realm of the

    beautiful people, barred from the inmost circles of power and prestige,

    and never quite reach the utopias of love and fame toward which our

    fantasies beckon us.

    How do we live with the daily humiliations built into our

    middling roles?  The mind is replete with gentle anesthetics that soothe

    these pains.  The greatest among them is a perceptual process of

    cosmetic surgery.  The mind covers up the harsher facts of our

    existence, and it focuses our attention on those few things that can give

    us self esteem.

    From 1972 until 1977, University of Utah psychologist Marigold

    Linton kept detailed, daily records of every aspect of her life.

    Periodically, she reviewed those records to see what she could

    remember and what she had forgotten.  The review was a painful

    experience.  Linton "warmed up" for each of these sessions by trying to

    recall the events of the last year without her notes.  What came to mind

    were the high points--the good times with her friends, the research

    successes, the new things she'd been able to buy.  But examining her

    three-by-five cards brought back a welter of details her mind had

    thoughtfully buried: the helpless feeling when her car had broken

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