Perceptions are portraits, not photographs, and their form reveals the artist’s hand every bit as much as it reflects the things portrayed
Interpretation
Perceptions depend on the viewer's perspective, just like art reflects the artist's style.
This quote emphasizes that our perceptions of reality are subjective and shaped by individual experiences and interpretations. Just as paintings showcase the distinct style and intention of the artist, our perceptions reveal more about ourselves and our perspectives than about the external world we observe.
In practice
In a discussion about how people interpret art differently at an exhibition.
Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory.
Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
The mistakes we make when we try to imagine our personal futures are also lawful, regular, and systematic. They, too, have a pattern that tells us about the powers and limits of foresight in much the same way that optical illusions tell us about the powers and limits of eyesight.
When we have an experience -- hearing a particular sonata, making love with a particular person, watching the sun set from a particular window of a particular room -- on successive occasions, we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage
Alas, we think of ourselves as unique entities-minds unlike any others-and thus we often reject the lessons that the emotional experience of others has to teach us.
What’s so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet, they’re overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being.
The fiction writer in me likes gaps in stories because I can jump into that gap and try to suggest something.
Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!
Films like Fargo are why I love the movies.
Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words.
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.
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