Last weekend, I had lunch with a group of military officers and their aides. Across the table from me sat a Major from the special forces and a Colonel formerly from intelligence. At one point, I asked them whether it was true that in battle, a soldier is not really that nervous, and that the knees shake afterwards.

“Not true,” they said. “One is nervous and anxious especially before an encounter. When the enemy fires first, we are stunned — we hang — for about 5 seconds. But the moment we return fire, anxiety disappears, and it’s back to doing our job. The real manoeuvres actually happen after the first shots are fired.”

“And,” they added, “victory often belongs to the one who fires first.”

I refer to this little exchange to introduce an important skill: knowing the difference between perception and perspective. Put that way, before an encounter, the soldier perceives the battlefield to be a dangerous place where he must kill or be killed. After he returns fire, he sees the battlefield as an area for manoeuvering, for positioning himself to best hit the enemy.

Andrew Bustamante, inspirational speaker and former CIA agent, was asked what is the top professional skill to learn, and he said immediately that it was this one.

Recognizing the subtle differences between them is vital for fostering effective communication, empathetic connections, and a more nuanced grasp of reality. This impacts the way we respond to facts and feelings, and therefore, may have implications in personal development and well being.

Perception is the process by which we answer “What does this sensory information mean to me?” How does the world make sense to me as a result? Perception is “to live like the star on one’s own movie.” It is our natural way of being, the default option. Perception is susceptible to biases, cultural influences, and individual experiences.

Perspective is the ability to perceive oneself from another’s position. It is to “watch your life according to another’s point of view.” The soldier no longer thinks, “He’s trying to kill me“, but rather “Where is he shooting me from and why from there?” In contrast to perception, it is not as natural and may require some training.

So now I get it. In the first 5 seconds after being shot at, a soldier perceives the enemy is trying to kill him. Perhaps those few seconds are filled with self doubt, fear, anger. All coming together, the man is stunned — perfectly natural. A soldier experiencing this for the first time, or who may have underlying psychological or emotional issues could hang for much longer than 5 seconds. A trained soldier would still experience these reactions. But returning fire overcomes these reactions. From this point, he sees how the enemy sees, thinks how the enemy thinks, sees his position the way the enemy sees it, and USES THIS KNOWLEDGE TO HIS ADVANTAGE regardless of any initial thoughts and fears he might have had.

On the other hand, coldness can turn to cold blood, explaining atrocities committed after a victory. The victor perceives the enemy as pure evil to be destroyed, without the perspective of their humanity.

I once advised a student that one of the most dangerous things especially for a sensitive soul is to be alone with his or her thoughts. It appears to me that perspective benefits from being more social, though it may also be accompanied by coldness and calculation even among close friends. Cold and calculating is good even among mates during battle.

Perception and perspective work together. It’s just harder to train perspective.

Understanding the distinction fosters effective communication. For example, you’re told that you’re too fat. You might perceive this in a positive light — you used to be malnourished. Or, you might in a negative light. Other people might just not care.

Is it because they have perspective? Maybe. If people told me I was fat, being a powerlifter, I would consider this advantageous — the heavier you are, the more weight you can lift. Or I’ll take it as a useless comment.

Dissociate my feelings from the facts allows me to use information to my advantage, the same data that would be catastrophic to me without practice.

I admit it is never easy to receive criticism. It is, in fact, a fear I must overcome when submitting articles to journals. When the reviews come, I perceive them to be attacks on my competence. I feel down, angry, why did I enter into this stupid profession? But, within a short while, I see these comments as constructive, and the pain turns to gratitude. I might conclude that the comments are not valid, but on the whole I end up appreciating all of them.

It may be more difficult to read these reviews for a number of reasons. When one has worked A LOT on a project, one naturally gets emotionally attached and thus more resistant to negative comments. When one has received many brutal comments in the past, one anticipates comments as evil and might not even submit the paper. The dread feelings are very real, but being real does not mean they are valid. Many people have quit their careers even before they got started, just because of the fear of failure and criticism.

Another reason for anxiety is when the reviewers are people I know and whom I do not like. Still, the perspective of an enemy is sometimes much more accurate than that of a friend. An enemy has nothing to prove. He is less inclined to sugarcoat his perspective and does not care about hurting your pride or your feelings and .

According to Bustamante, many people live their whole lives perceiving, without taking the trouble to learn perspective. I suspect many anxieties today, from the effect the Israel-Hamas conflict has on ordinary Tik Tokers to the anxieties passport bros inspire in women, are symptoms of a failure of perspective. Karens are ALL PERCEPTION. On the other hand, coldness and calculation can also lead to atrocities — Genghis Khan was notorious for using overwhelming violence as a weapon through sheer force of fear, and it worked. But he also had high level of perception. Perhaps recalling his own defeats and his role in them, he said:

“An action committed in anger is an action doomed to failure.”

Genghis Khan (died 1227)

It may well be useless to know the distinction between perception and perspective if one has not acquired wisdom especially from the study of history, ethics, and philosophy. It is, of course, just as useless without knowing how to execute.

(Q.C., 231130)