Giving One Another Some Slack

by Justine Willis Toms

Imagine you are asked to watch a short video in which six people-three in white shirts and three in black shirts-pass basketballs around. While you watch, you must keep a silent count of the number of passes made by the people in white shirts. At some point, a gorilla strolls into the middle of the action, faces the camera and thumps its chest, and then leaves, spending nine seconds on screen. Would you see the gorilla? An experiment at Harvard University several years ago, found that half of the people who watched the video and counted the passes missed the gorilla. It was as though the gorilla was invisible. This was called the selective attention test.
I must admit I recently failed just such a test. It was hard for me to believe I was so blind. It happened when I stopped by my local apothecary to pick up a refill on a prescription. There was a woman at the counter paying for hers and so I lined up behind her thinking to myself, "Oh good, there's no line." When I stepped up to the counter the pharmacist pointed to a man at my left and said, "I believe he was next."
I did remember seeing a man in a red shirt looking over some shelves of over the counter medications, but he didn't seem to be waiting in any sort of line.
Another clerk then asked me to step to the rear of the line. It was at that point I noticed five or six people standing in line waiting to step up to the counter. I thought to myself, "Where did they come from? They sure did appear suddenly." I was positive they weren't in line when I walked in and said so to the clerk. A look of, what seemed to me to be, disgust came over her face and she insisted they were, indeed, in line when I came in. With no small amount of irritation and still fully believing myself to be in the right, I moved to the back of the line.
When finally I stepped to the counter, I once more insisted on my innocence that there was no one in line when I arrived, and went on to concede that, if there were, I must have been blind and unconscious and just didn't notice. I said my brain must have been a million miles away--which it was.
The two clerks continued to act as if I had purposely butted in line, and I took their perception very personally. I was devastated and deeply shamed. I'd been going there for over twenty years and was known by most of the clerks and pharmacists there. I felt I was given no quarter of understanding.
As I walked out I remembered the gorilla story, and the selective attention test that was conducted. I realized that I absolutely did not perceive the people in line, even though there were many witnesses to the contrary.
The lesson I learned from this was how, in these stressful times, we need to cut each other some slack. Maybe it would have been a different scenario if, when I stepped up to the counter, the clerk had not presumed I butted in line, but, as incredulous as it might seem, accepted that I, in fact, didn't "see" the line and offer something like, "Oh, you must not have noticed the line of people, I believe this man was next."
Allowing me the benefit of the doubt might have gently pulled me out of my reverie to notice more accurately my surroundings—or not—I'll never know.
What I do know is that I hope I can be quick to give others the benefit of the doubt. I do believe these stressful times call for us to be ever more gentle and kind toward one another; after all, there may be unseen gorillas in the room.

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From an interview on DEMOCRACY NOW :  

These are IMPORTANT words from journalist Robert Fisk.......
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/9/the_great_tragedy_is_obama_chose
“The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand”: Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising
And the great tragedy is that at this critical moment, Obama chose not to hold out his hand to the democrats and to say, "We support you, and Mubarak must go." He chose to support, effectively, Mubarak by saying orderly transition. You know, he wants another general—he’s already got one, Omar Suleiman, the Vice President—to take over. The army, which receives $1.3 billions of American taxpayers’ money every year, is going to be called upon to try and make this transition, even though Mubarak himself, of course, was the head of the air force. He was a general, too. Omar Suleiman, the Vice President, is a general, head of intelligence, a very ruthless man. His people carried out a lot of tortures in the past against Islamist uprisings in Egypt. And for many of the people on the street, there was deep disappointment that at this critical moment the President of the United States, who came here to Cairo just under 18 months ago to tell the Muslim world—he held up their hand, and he said, "Do not clench your fists in response." When the democrats came onto the streets of Cairo and wanted what Obama had advertised to them, it was Obama who clenched his fist and Hillary Clinton who said that it’s a stable regime.

Only now, when they realize that perhaps Mubarak is going to go, mainly because the army want to get rid of him, not the protesters—and another part of the tragedy—are they beginning to say, "Well, we’ve got to get rid of this old man," but not, of course, to replace him with real democrats but to replace him with an army-backed regime, which is effectively Mubarak part two.

You see, American—the problem with the Americans is that when you—the moral values of the United States become disentangled from the national interest at critical moments like this. You know, we all want democracy, but not if we lose Mubarak, who is Israel’s man, etc., etc. And this, of course, doesn’t come as a great surprise to the Arabs, although, as I wrote in the paper, had Obama decided to say, "Look, I’m with the democrats; they’re doing what I talked about in Cairo 18 months ago, 17 months ago," there would have been American flags all over Cairo, all over Egypt. And indeed, it would have solved, in many Arab minds, all the wounds that the Arab and Muslim world has sustained from the United States, and particularly Britain as well, over the last 10 years.

Photo; Christians Protecting Muslims Praying in Egypt ///opednews.com/

To those who suggest that the Egyptian revolution is a threat, that radical Muslims will take over and endanger Israel, here is an image that contradicts that negative energy. It has already been viewed over 120,000 times on one site alone. 

This is the type of DEMOCRACY the United States supports......we support it with our tax dollars..remember most foreign aids go into the pockets of the military industrial complex.

Happy New Moon in Aquarius....Welcome Imbolc.

MY HEART, MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT.

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

-- Rumi