It often amazes me how most people fail to ‘see the wood for the trees’. 

I don’t know what the real interpretation is for that phrase, but to me, it basically means that they cannot see what is right in front of them because of what is right in front of them.

The obvious is being obscured by… the obvious.

Take youngsters who idolised gangsa rap in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Quite a few youngsters joined gangs and became street gangstas (that’s how the ‘yoot’ used to spell gangsters) because of that music.

Sadly, quite a lot of those youngsters ended up in prison, hospital or in the graveyard.

A lot of lives and families have been destroyed by people misinterpreting what they were seeing, not by the actual music itself. 

A lot of wealthy gangsta rappers talking about guns and violence on the streets were mostly documenting what was happening around them and talking about their past experiences and in some cases, creating a fictitious persona.

The thing that was making them a whole lot of money was the music career they were pursuing. 

Very few gangsta rappers were actually cruising around on a Friday night carrying a nine millimetre looking for hoes and rival gang members. They turned to music to escape from the gangs and violence.

Gangsta rappers were mostly story tellers just like Agatha Christie and James Patterson.They were acting out stories and that is why a lot of the rappers from that era are now well paid actors starring in films and dramas.

A lot of people who listened to those rappers missed that. 

They believed that these rappers were wealthy because of being in gangs dealing drugs and having shootouts with neighbouring gangs.

The problem seems to be that quite a lot of people struggle to put two and two together and come up with four.

Instead of four, they seem to end up with all kinds of crazy answers.

They simply cannot see the wood for the trees. The obvious is obscured by what and how they think about something.

The other day I talked about those who like to say ‘if something seems too good to be true, it probably is’ and that very often they are wrong because they are making a judgement lacking a lot of vital insider information.

Both these problems stem from ‘surface observations’ without any form of critical thinking or research.

Another prime example of this in action is in the comments sections on Facebook. I try not to spend too much time reading comments but it can be incredibly entertaining and educational.

I remember once reading a lot of comments regarding a photo of a police officer struggling with a protester on the floor. 

The police officer was clearly struggling and his face was showing that he was using a lot of energy and concentrating hard on what he was doing. 

When people are using a lot of exertion, they often have their lips drawn back and even their mouths open baring their teeth.

Many commenters were saying that the police officer was smiling and laughing and that he was ‘really enjoying himself’ while wrestling with the protester.

Nothing was further from the truth. 

He was basically grimacing while struggling. Facial muscles do pretty much similar things when you smile or grimace. The mouth pulls back, the lips lift up exposing your teeth.

To determine whether the police officer was in fact enjoying himself wrestling with the protester and laughing while he held him down on the floor, an observer would need to watch several seconds of video. Possibly more than 30 seconds to get a full picture. 

And then you would need to take into consideration other factors such as other body language signs and possible nervous laughing born from stress and fear.

It’s rare to correctly assume a person’s intention from a photo like that.

The photo is a split second record of an event. It’s a ‘snapshot!’ 

It captures an infinitesimal period of time and when that photo has been taken during a moment with a lot of movement, it can very easily be interpreted wrong.

Don’t believe me?

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