The Ever-Changing Landscape of the Mind

“How Perception is a Never-Ending Evolutionary Process”
Written by Rick Trottier – RJT Images-Light Works Studio
There are many facets to the process of aging, some of which are fascinating while others are dreadful. The less pleasant qualities of stumbling down the avenues of old age are not really all that vital to explore here as they are likely to descend into a cacophony of complaining and whining. There are things to be thankful for and blessings to celebrate without question when it comes to the effects of time’s passing. I started this article on the Thanksgiving Holiday of 2021, and although many months have passed, aging has been and still is very much on my mind of late for a variety of reasons, so exploring its mixed beneficence is a virtue in and of itself.
We live in a culture today that is obsessed with image, with instant gratification, with materialism and all things superficial. As such, the ability to carefully assess and evaluate oneself seems to be something steadily slipping away from the populace. Meticulously weighing changes in our minds and spirits as decades pass and before the chance to do such a thing is lost to the depredations of later old age would seem to be quite an important personal mile-marker. And over the past fifteen years, I’ve come to see self-improvement and the chance to shape who I want to be as central to my daily devotions. Examining where I’ve come from, where I am and where that might all lead has distinct merit. But what I really hope to do with this article is not to celebrate myself, but to get people to reflect on what they can and should be doing in their own lives.
I am always fascinated by how perception changes in my mind; how I “see” what I interact with and what conclusions I draw from such an experience. Since that Thanksgiving Holiday, from an intellectual standpoint, several opportunities have presented themselves wherein I have been able to establish very clear empirical parameters for comparing how I perceived something from past years and how I now observe it in the present. Since late November, I have explored a specific “older” TV show on Pluto TV, my primary vehicle for watching any “television” today since I have no classic access to network broadcasts, I have revisited some old movies I can access through the streaming channel Vudu that was gifted to me by a close friend, and I have begun re-reading some classic fiction that I discovered in junior high and high school and haven’t read since.
You can read more of this article in our Fall 2022 Issue of ModelsMania