Presence of mind…
We all do have our favourite artists, films, political views, favourite sports and teams etc. It’s almost of no use for an outsider to try to change our personal opinion, since we already have decided what we think of the phenomenons. E.g. if you listen to a political debate, most often you listen in to what you would like to hear from ‘your side’ instead of listening on the opponents and building yourself a new opinion. Nothing is wrong with that, and our presuppositions are everywhere. Sometimes they prevent development and sometimes they support development.
As we also have pointed out on this side, our presence of mind tend to deteriorate and our attention isn’t always in the present. A very good example of this is the ‘Pearls before breakfast’ experiment which Washington Post conducted back in January 2007 and was revealed in April 2007.
Imagine what’ll happen if your favourite musician, a person who just has sold out Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100, turned up to play for free with his 300-year-old Stradivarius, one morning in the Metro? Would there be a huge crowd or what? Would we listen in, to the beautiful sound or would our presuppositions fool us (‘it sounds ok, but why is that guy playing here…’) and would we just rush by?
What happened that day was that almost no one stopped by when Joshua Bell, slightly disguised, played for 43 minutes at the L’enfant plaza station in Washington. During his 43 minutes of playing he gathered $32.17…
Are there pearls around me, where I don’t pay enough attention?
Interview with the columnist Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post