La Vie en Rose

On lenses and rose-coloured glasses

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Dear Bolu,

Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose loosely translates to “life in pink” or “seeing life through rose-coloured glasses”. It’s a song about how everything seems many shades better to a woman because she is in love. This is the second time this song is making it to my letters(first time here), and I bet it won’t be the last because, much like its many covers, I can’t seem to get enough of it. I had hoped to write to you about private concert halls, colloquially referred to as “bathrooms”, but I shall leave that for another time. Today, let’s enjoy french music and see if it has any valuable lessons for us.

“Seeing life through rose-coloured glasses” suggests that we can see life through “non-rose-coloured glasses”. It’s a simple inference and that’s the appeal of binary arguments. This or that. Yes or no. True or false. 1 or 0. Black or white. None of that grey-area wrapper that seems to complicate everything nowadays. “Oh, it’s not exactly one or the other. There are nuances that finely characterise this spectrum”. Of course, even these nuances are nuanced, so we have nested nuances that recurse till we either lose our minds or run for our lives. Pfft! Anyway, I digress.

Much of life is about perception—how we see and interpret things. Do we use rose-coloured glasses, such that we’re primarily optimists? Do we focus more on the nos, nadas, buts and nots? It’s up to us; it is our responsibility. Our roots, culture, and upbringing largely shape our perceptions but ultimately, we’re in charge of how malleable they are and how we intend to reshape them. We control how we approach situations and interpret things, and that’s important because some approaches and interpretations are more useful than others in specific situations. We can get varying value from an experience depending on our approach, so it helps to go with one that gives us the best value in that context.

We extricate value all the time—in the form of lessons learned, the pleasure derived, resources gained, etc. And how much value we get from different experiences is dependent on our approach to and perception of the experience. How do you approach arguments? With the lens that you want to win or that you want to learn and find holes in your knowledge? How do you approach a sci-fi movie? With the lens that you want to spot the non-scientific ideas espoused in it or that you want to enjoy a good story? How do you approach relationships? With the lens that you want to grow with them or that you don’t want to be alone on Valentine’s Day? How do you approach your work? With the lens that you just want the money or you want to learn (and the pay, of course!)?

Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash

In the Holy Bible, there is a story about a man named Joshua who led the people of Israel to war. In one of the battles, Joshua prayed for the sun and moon to stand still so that his people could finish off their enemies. They did—the sun and moon stood still, and his people were victorious. If you’re reading the Bible as a scientific text, you will find fault with this. The sun could not have stood still because of a man’s prayer, as the sun already stands still. It must mean then that the earth stood still. So if this book could be wrong about the sun standing still, then it’s probably wrong about many things, and I can’t take it seriously. As a scientific text, the Bible will provide you with little value. Does that mean it’s not a valuable book at all? Does that mean empirical lenses are not good at all? Surely not. The Bible teaches many valuable lessons, and we’d be fools to discount them simply because of a “scientific” error in the Book of Joshua. To get the best value out of the Bible and other religious texts, you should not interpret them scientifically. However, there are other texts that you must interpret scientifically; else you would be underutilising them. Things are as valuable to us as we see them.

Also if you watch a football match as a neutral, you will find that you’re more relaxed in the course of the game. You’re not tense. You’re not fearful of one side winning or the other side capitulating. You enjoy the game. However, if you placed a bet on one of the teams to win or one of the players to score, you won’t be easy during the game. You’d want the player you bet on to constantly have the ball and the team to always be on the front foot. It’s not going to make for the most pleasurable viewing experience. So perceiving the same event in different ways makes for varying degrees of pleasure.

We’re primarily in control of the lenses through which we see things, and we can get more value from specific experiences depending on the lens we use. Sometimes, we may not have much choice on the lens—if your country or kid is playing a football match, for example, you can’t watch the game as a neutral. You have personal motivations that cannot be easily subdued. Other times, however, we have a say in the matter, and we should go for what yields the highest value to us. We may be naturally optimistic, but it may help to approach certain situations with a tinge of pessimism. We may trust people easily, but it may help to be doubtful sometimes. 

Much of life is about perception. It is said that bronze medalists often seem happier than silver medalists, which might sound strange because two precedes three. The bronze medalist sees her medal through this rose-coloured lens; “oh wow, I almost didn’t win any medal at all. I’m grateful for this”. On the other hand, the silver medalist uses this non-rose-coloured lens; “oh damn, I was so close. I missed out on being first”. So while one is happy to (barely) make it to the podium, the other is sad not to make it to the top. Perhaps the silver medalist should borrow the bronze medalist’s lens. Perhaps then, she’d better enjoy the experience of being on the podium. Perhaps she’d smile a bit more heartily and take more pride in herself and her latest achievement. It’s all about the lens, dear friend. It’s all about the lens.

Fin.

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P.S

Don’t you find it weird that the only time people say, “pardon my French,” is when they did not say any word of French at all?

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- Wolemercy