You're the voice

Before, I start of on the actual subject matter of this blog spot, a bit of information. I have this weird mental block against reading/listening/watching stuff that has been acknowledged as great. It is like a huge mental pressure on me to like and appreciate it, irregardless of how I really feel about it. Also, there is this feeling that it does not really need me, so why bother. So I rather, spend my time listening to music that is thrashed, reading books that are trivial and watching movies that are not the all time greats.

Hence, though I acknowledge John Lennon's brilliance, I have not quite listened to him. Similarly, I would not have watched most of the great movies or read the best books.

Coming to the post, what is it in a human that makes us assume certain things about someone or something. When you look at a person, for the first time, what does determine how you feel or think about that person. Is it like he looks similar to someone and hence he also must be like that, he dresses like this, he talks like this and so on? Something that you have learnt from society, on how possibly this person could be.

Or is it something more intrinsic. Something more personal to you, that you can look at a person differently from some other person. Like clouds in the sky.

It is the classic question of what determines your living? Is is the things that you are born with, or is the things you learn. As with all life's questions, there is I guess no clear cut answer. It is invariably a mix of both. You might even say, what you are born with , determines what you learn. Or even, what you learn helps you make better use of what you were born with.

So do you become a Manchester United fan because the friends who introduced you to the game, were fans of the club or do you become a Man U fan because you happen to catch a game on TV and something clicked inside? Do you become a Sachin fan because he is the greatest, or do you become a Dravid fan, because you connect to him more.

As with most people, I also tend to form opinions about people at first sight. Intuition I guess. It takes a lot to change my feelings towards a particular person, it might grow over time, but does not usually quite change.

Similarly, with music. I have this perception in my head that a particular artist would sound like this, even if I have not heard them. Two cases in point. I have never listened to John Lennon. Over the weekend I happened to listen to him, and I was genuinely taken aback. I did not expect him to sound like that. OK, it could be that his voice sounds different from his Beatle days. So I expected him to sound like that, which he did not. Paul on the other hand, sounded exactly like I expected him to.

The other case, was with respect to Coldplay. There was this song on their album LeftRightLeftRightLeft, called Death will never conquer. I could not make out who Chris introduced as the singer, so my mind had already perceived the image of how the singer looked like, by the time the song was over. It turned out to be Will Champion, the drummer, and he does not look even remotely close to the image I had perceived.

So , where do these perceptions come from? What determines what we think, what we dream and what we feel?

For someone who is quite scared of people, they constantly fascinate me though.