Tunnel Vision

Everyone, to differing degrees, encounters tunnel vision in their everyday lives. Tunnel vision is a response to a set of personal filters that reflect the individual’s background, upbringing, experience and cultural biases. These filters effect how an individual interprets the consequences of an event. I make this assertion after years of observing humanity as it goes about its business. The most amazing effect of these filters is that people “see” only a small part of what actually happened in front of their eyes. Although they “see” the entire event, most of it is discard as irrelevant to the individual’s situation. Tunnel vision, in other words.

To explain more about this phenomena, suppose two individuals see an event simultaneously. One individual has an engineering degree and works in a research lab while the second never finished high school and drives a truck. Because of their different backgrounds and experiences, the two will view the situation through different filters and possibly arrive at completely different responses to the event. This is not to imply that one response is better or worse than the other, only that they will be different.

I have observed three sets of filters that are present, in various strengths, in people. The first and most powerful is a personal filter. Using this filter, people interpret an event in terms of “What’s in this for me?” and “How does this effect me?” and “How does this effect my family?” Many people apparently have only this filter or ignore the other two filters. The questions here are generic questions. A certain individual’s actual question may be, “Is this going to screw up my date on Friday night?” or, “This’ll make me late for dinner.”

The second filter is financial and it cuts in as soon as the first is finished. This filter analyzes questions such as, “Can I make money out of this event?” and “Is this thing going to cost me money?” In some individuals, this second filter is the primary one and is used before, or instead of, the personal filter.

The third filter is rarely used. It poses such questions as, “How does this event effect society?” and “How does it effect my country?” The use of this filter is so rare that it can be used as test for leadership. True leaders are those people who use this third filter to override the other two. By this litmus test, virtually every one of today’s politicians fails as a leader. Possibly the last two true leaders lived in the middle of the last century. Winston Churchill preached against Hitler long before most people even heard of the man. Franklin Roosevelt used loopholes in the laws to support Britain’s war against the Nazis at a time when most people in the United States advocated neutrality and non-intervention.