..reasonably petite in size, ripe red, top heavy, with an all-green leafy hat and a little stem. Generally a perfect picture of a strawberry. But we've all come across an odd ball whilst snacking on a punnet of the fresh red stuff, one that makes you go 'Oooh, look at this one, kinda looks like the distorted face of an old man smoking a pipe!' Okay, so maybe not that exact phrase, but you get my point. Now I can't speak for the entire strawberry loving population, but personally, and as I'm sure many of you would agree, out of these two berries, I would much rather eat the above one as it looks far more inviting. However, is it fair to so quickly dismiss the below, far less attractive strawberry, purely because it doesn't meet the average perfect strawberry specification? The chances are it's just as juicy and bursting with flavour as the one above.
Even so, I would still choose the more appealing looking strawberry to eat first, before I just as happily ate the other. Why? Because I'm a human being, and because it's programmed into us to judge things by their appearance. It's an instinct there to protect us, so that a few thousand years ago when we were still unable to form words or cook a Sunday roast, we knew not to eat that unhealthy looking piece of browning boar, and instead choose the fresh bloody mammoth meat that had just been caught (I realise those two animals probably never shared a timezone, let alone a cave, but they were the first two creatures I thought of). Luckily today we are evolved enough though, for the most part, to consider something that might not at first seem so appealing, because you genuinely can't judge a book by its cover, you can have an instinctual response to turn it away due to the strange looking boy in glasses with a scar on his forehead on the front cover, but ultimately our higher level of intelligence, and I think our natural curiosity, allow us to think and reconsider our options, not simply based on appearances alone.
So I suppose my point, if I have one, is that we shouldn't feel bad about ourselves when we feel the urge to walk on the other side of the road because there's an unwashed hobo dancing with a tambourine for a bit of change coming up ahead. We should, however, be intelligent and open minded enough to consider all aspects of the situation, not just the physical characteristics, but all the other points behind it, because maybe that hobo has a really awesome story to tell, or even just a hilarious joke that will keep you smiling even when your boss is being an absolute shit head to you later that day.
Who knows..well, no-one, until someone comes along with the courage to find out.
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