Life is defined by change. If it is living, it will change.
People change, families, organisations and societies also change, even countries constantly change.
Based on our 'education', social and familial conditioning, media and our own experiences we judge and categorise everything we get an input on. Thus layer by layer our individual reality is constructed.
These categorisations become what we call perceptions. These become our 'truths'. What is good, what is bad, what is harmful or dangerous and what is beneficial? Who or what is to be believed or ignored, etc. etc.
It is natures way of allowing us to cope with life by constructing for us 'our reality'. The longer we live, the more rigid the edifice of our reality becomes.
Now when we encounter something which is overwhelmingly at odds with our perceptions, we grow uneasy, and become disoriented. This is why we refuse to see facts until they cannot be ignored anymore, and helps explain why perception always lags behind reality.
Most of us are constantly seeking to change for the better, but often become frustrated, because no one seems to believe us. We may have changed, but the perception about us as held by others simply does not.
Leave alone ordinary mortals, its rightly said by the wise that, 'Even a Prophet is rarely recognised in his own land'
Though we evolve and thus change significantly in many ways, people still see us as the individual or group that we once were. There is no other way but to wait patiently, maybe for a long while before others recognise the change.
The familiar make us feel secure. But that which secures, also constricts and restricts. The unfamiliar may even frighten but also liberates.
As we reach out to people and situations beyond our familiar circle and environment, the more we travel, greater is the freedom we experience.
Strangers that have had little or no historical awareness about us form their perceptions with the changed or evolved individual. Strangers are therefore much bolder in both criticising and praising than do our family, friends and associates. This starkness, this openness provides great stimulus to an open and evolving mind.
To change our own perception, its advisable to explore and travel. Exploration and travel makes intelligent people wiser, unfortunately it also makes fools worse..
p.s.
The constant pummelling (raining blows) delivered by modern education and ancient organised religion results in our powers of imagination becoming stunted.
Rarely do we understand that Imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself. That is why by the time we are educated and indoctrinated our perception become fossilised. As a result we are often unable to accept facts when presented.
This conditioning is what Guru Nanak calls 'haumay.'