I think that I am an independent, impartial observer.

I’m not.

No matter how much I want to flatter myself to think otherwise, I only perceive what I allow.

Scientists tell me that if all the potential light waves were organized into a pie chart on a page, the range of light visible to the human eye is so narrow it would not be perceptible to me as a line on the pie chart.

I see and know all but nothing compared to the full range of reality.

And if I stayed present to the relatively small part of reality my body could perceive, my brain and synapses would be totally overwhelmed.

Therefore, to stay sane and capable, I have to block out the vast majority of stimuli my mind could potentially accept.

My brain has various filtering mechanisms, including my reticular activating system, that filters out everything that I have not given sanction to.

As I write I blocked out the subtle sound of heating vents, the traffic outside, the hum of my computer.

No matter how tired I was, I awoke if my baby coughed because that was relevant. The dripping faucet in the middle of the night or airplane above were blocked out because they were not relevant, I had not given them sanction to Alert me.

So, I was thinking, if my day-to-day life is filled with information I perceive it determines what I know. It determines my perception of reality. It determines my decisions and choices and eventually the habits I form.

And of course you can finish off the sentence, it determines my character and eventually my destiny.

I’m not the perceiver. More accurately I am the assessment I have made from my perceptions.