Perception vs. Identity

Identity is what a person really is, from personality to behavior, while perception is what another person chooses to see as their identity. From the perception of identity to the actual identity there is a gap formed by the prejudices and past experiences of the perceiver. The gap can be huge or miniscule all the depending on the eye of the perciever. An infant with not much exposure to prejudices or racism has a very small gap and can see the identity almost perfectly, which explains why many believe infants speak the truth. However, an adult with lots of exposure has a bigger gap that shows a bigger deviation from the truth. In the Nancy Mairs piece "Disability" many people seem to perceive a disability as consuming, leaving no time to behave like a normal person, but the actual identity of a disabled person is very normal and almost boring, "I menstruate, so I have to buy tampons, I worry about smoker's breath so I buy mouthwash..."(Mairs 14). This gap in judgement results from not having enough integration of the disabled with the able-bodied as Mairs mentions but also from the constant fear of someday joining the disabled. So in this case the gap serves as a cushion of safety that society places in minds to perceive another as completely different from their true identity, which is almost exactly the same as an able-bodied person. These safety cushions can be dangerous because they are also perceived and are not really in place. So they will not be there to catch the able-bodied person when they fall into the life of the the disabled, which is not made miserable by physical limitations but by mental limitations placed by the media. The world is really how one sees it so try to see the truth in it with no filters of prejudices.