what really happened?

 After reading Recitatif and its themes of differences in perception, I couldn't help but wonder the extent of this in our lives. Last week when we were doing the graphs on the structure of the story of Three Girls and Flowers, almost everyone in my group had unique looking graphs; it all comes down to perception. We all read the same piece and were given the same task, yet produced different answers. I believe it all boils down to our memories and past experiences. 

This parallels what we're learning in AP Psych right now: the fact that memories causes perceptual sets (biases) in everyone. When you think about it, we are really just our memories. They are what we did in the past and they affect how we will act in the present and the future. This is what makes us unique; the fact that no two people have the same perception of life. Sometimes, people's perception of things can be starkly different, as in Recitatif. Although Roberta and Twyla were both at the incident with Maggie, they have differing memories on what really happened. Even if they weren't intending to, their races and experiences largely shape the way they view the incident. 

Even in the smallest things, such as the graph of structure mentioned earlier, our unique perception and biases show. In essence, some people may view certain parts of the story as more important simply because of the lives they've lived. Perception is unavoidable. No matter how we try, everyone falls to biases unconsciously.