An Elephant Crack Up Analysis

The Power of a Versatile Mind
The human mind is a remarkable machine. Depending on what an individual needs, the mind change its own perception in order to fit the needs of the individual. The mind can sometimes sense or feel things that are not actually there, as well as ignore things that are there, depending on what the individual chose or needs to sense or feel. Of course, this control is not infinite. There are limitations to just how much someone can control, and not everyone is capable of this controlled change of perception. Still, there are many examples of people changing their perception greatly in order to better their own lives. Humanitarian authors such as Charles Siebert, Karen Armstrong, and Oliver Sacks each demonstrate different
Through observation and psychological connections, scientist like Siebert began to notice similarities between humans and elephants, which is how human perception of elephants began to change. “And yet just as we now understand that elephants hurt like us, we’re learning that they can heal like us as well”(Siebert 361). Siebert’s word choice of “learning,” in this case translates directly into, “changing our perception to see that…”. After people began to realize that elephant psychology is similar to human psychology, people began to treat the outlashing elephants with therapy, similar to how we would treat a human who had gone through a traumatic experience. People began to notice that the peaceful therapies were much more effective than when the intimidating strategies they were using previously. So by changing our perception of elephants, we found an effective solution to deal with some of the elephant’s violent outlashes and live with them in peace. Another reason someone might want to change their perception is so that they can understand the purpose of life, just like
Human’s obviously have limitations on just how much they can perceive, even with practice and time, we can only change our perceptions so much. For example, the people in Siebert’s story do have an increased respect towards elephants, but their perception of elephants is still that they are elephants. So, for example, people will not collectively stop killing elephants for their ivory or resolve the Human-Elephant conflict all together. This is because even though our perception of elephants has changed from emotionless, violent creatures to misunderstood and intelligent animals, humans still have a tendency to think about their needs first. “And while our concern may ultimately be rooted in that most human of impulses--the preservation of our own self image--the great paradox about this particular moment in our history with elephants is that saving them will require finally getting past ourselves; it will demand the ultimate act of deep, interspecies empathy”(Siebert 362). So in this case, it would take a great deal of energy and time in order to completely save the elephants, which is something that not everyone is willing to give. This is where our change of perception is limited, because after a certain point, we will still perceive ourselves as the dominant life forms while elephants will always just be resourceful animals to most humans. Another case where human perception is