Perception

The story, taken from Mark Twain's 'The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories,' centers on a beautiful painted picture placed before a mirror. It makes me question how easily people can be convinced by elaborate language, and if doubt, like the donkey's, is the only reliable path to finding the true picture behind the hype.

We start by walking through Twain's fable and then move into a deeply personal memory from my workplace regarding a less skilled colleague. By comparing these two scenarios, we ultimately examine motivated perception, the powerful idea that our unconscious desires and fears determine what information we interpret and what reality we choose to see.