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What Are You Missing? Interpreting what we see is limited by our worldview. Fresh from mak ng mud p es, Pau and I were coated n d rt from our e bows to our f ngert ps. We wa ked nto the k tchen to c ean up for unch, where we found Rafe ean ng aga nst the wa , shak ng, and cry ng uncontro ab y. H s face, wet w th tears, was red, and a ne of droo hung from h s open mouth. I was shocked. I cou dn t mag ne anyth ng that cou d make Rafe cry. He was powerfu ; tw ce my s ze, and tw ce my age, he was the f rst o der boy I had ever been assoc ated w th. “What s wrong?” I asked. He mumb ed ncoherent y, so I asked, “Are you hurt?” Just then, Frank, the brother between Pau and Rafe, wa ked nto the room. “He sn t hurt. He sa d a bad word, and Mother washed h s mouth out.” As a four-year-o d, I cou dn t conce ve what that meant. I d dn t know what a bad word was, nor had I heard of hav ng your mouth washed out, but from the ook on Rafe s face I knew t must be horr b e, and I was terr b y fr ghtened. Amoment ater, the r mother, my Aunt Dor s, came n and herded Pau and I over to the s nk to wash our hands. A few days ater, I was watch ng Aunt Dor s c ean the bathroom. On the counter I saw a beaut fu g ass bott e f ed w th a br ght turquo se-b ue qu d. Th nk ng t mght be someth ng de ghtfu to dr nk, I po nted to t and asked, “What s that?” “Mouthwash,” she rep ed. I ran out of the room screamng. My wor dv ew d dn t yet nc ude breath-freshen ng r nse; and so some- th ng ca ed mouthwash cou d - n my mnd - on y be a po son for pun sh ng boys unt they cr ed. We nterpret the wor d w th what we know unt we earn otherw se, or f nd ev dence to the contrary. Somet mes our mnds change the actua th ngs we see to match our wor dv ew. I can t te you howmany t mes I ve proofread someth ng I ve wr tten on y to comp ete y m ss errors wh ch seem g ar ng when someone e se found them. My mnd reads t the way I th nk I wrote t. (The cure comes by read ng t a oud; I se dom mss errors th s way.) How often does our m nd do th s? Apparent y a ot, accord ng to an exper ment t t ed: Perceptions of Incongruity conducted at Harvard n 1949. Test subjects were shown norma p ay ng cards and asked to name the cards by number and su t. After show ng those cards severa t mes, the exper menters ntroduced some anoma ous cards nto the m x - b ack hearts and d amonds, red spades and c ubs. Remarkab y, the test subjects d d not not ce the change. The r bra ns wou d “autocorrect” and dent fy b ack hearts as spades or as f t were a red heart, and so forth w th the other cards. Johann Wo fgang Goethe, the German wr ter observed: “We see on y what we know.” It makes me wonder what e se n the wor d we are not see ng r ght n front of us. I ve heard stor es of so ated nat ve peop es, who have never been exposed to modern techno ogy, be ng shown photographs. The nat ves cou d not make sense of the two-dmens ona p ctures, even those taken of th ngs they knew. I a so reca hear ng of Pac f c s anders who cou d not see the b g sa ng sh ps of the ear y wor d exp orers when f rst exposed to them. At best, some saw the sa s as arge wh te b rds. Recent y, I saw the 1998 mov e Pleasantville for the f rst t me. It s about a teenage boy named Dav d who oves the s mp e t mes dep cted n a 1950s s tcom f med n b ack and wh te. He s g ven a mag c te ev s on remote contro , wh ch sucks hm and h s s ster nto the s tcom. Even though they are now v ng n P easantv e, everyth ng rema ns n b ack and wh te. The peop e of the town have a very narrow and un form wor dv ew. Over t me, as Dav d and h s s ster nteract w th the 1950s peop e and share 1990s va ues w th them, t causes d srupt ons. The exposure to new deas expands the know edge/understand ng of the c t zens of P easantv e, and n turn causes some parts of the town to become v s b e n co or. It was th s mov e wh ch got me th nk ng about the concept known as perceptua b ndness. A so known as nattent ona b ndness, t s a phenomenon n wh ch we m ss consp cuous events or ho d an ncorrect percept on or memory of events or objects that were n p a n s ght - a of wh ch s k nd of damn ng for eyew tness accounts. Th s makes me wonder what e se are we m ss ng, not see ng, because we don t have the wor dv ew n wh ch to perce ve t? How often do our r g d soc a , po t ca , or re- g ous be efs prevent us from see ng a ter- nat ves wh ch are obv ous to others? In my presentat ons on nnovat on and creat v ty, I po nt out the best way to f nd these h dden connect ons - these new op- portun t es - s to ncrease the d vers ty of our know edge. Ep phan es are more ke y to emerge when we expose ourse ves to d vergent v ewpo nts and to as many new exper ences as poss b e. Robert Robert may be contacted via e-mail to michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com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he Un-Comfort Zone II by Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. 8 AUGUST 2016 WorldWide Drilling Resource ®