"The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible." -Mark Twain

On the swim team, we were coached that in a race, the initial dive was essential. Plunging deep beneath the surface, gliding at lighting speed adjacent to the pool floor, this was the time to make progress. When it comes to a race, dive quality is a great predictor of your success. Belly flop or surface too soon, and well, game over. Despite having started their dives at the exact same moment, swimmers surfaced at different times and places along their respective lanes.

Thinking back, swimming is not the only activity in which I was encouraged to scrape beneath the surface. Academic endeavors, especially literary exploits, were deeply entrenched in this tactic. A good motto would have been something like, "What you don't see is what you get." Take poetry explication, for example. We spent hours reading between the lines. Painstakingly chipping away at the words to find some deeper meaning. Wringing out the implications of odes to nightingales and Grecian urns, works that can arguably be credited to substance abuse. What's in a name, right?

It was during an in-class explication of Charles Baudelaire's posthumously published Spleen that I had a deep realization. There was no way I could ever know for certain the meaning intended by this French master of poetry. And perhaps more importantly, it didn't matter. Writing it, no doubt, had some specific meaning to him. But in that moment, in 4th period French Literature, all that mattered was how I interpreted the poem. What it meant to me. In my world, Spleen meant nothing more than what I perceived it to be. Baudelaire's true intentions were not only never to be known, but also irrelevant.

Prosopagnosia is a psychological disorder in which the ability to recognize faces is impaired. On the topic, there is a famous story about a man suffering with the disease who attends an annual conference. Every year, he re-memorizes the names and faces of the regular attendees so that he can greet them when he sees them. One particular year, he sees a man walking towards him and is overcome with stress. Who is that? That is a face and name that I did not memorize but he looks so familiar. The two men get closer and closer, our hero getting increasingly nervous. When finally he is standing face to face with the man, he puts his arm out to shake his hand. In doing so, he hits a mirror. This man cannot recognize his own face. He perceives the face to be that of another person and that is his reality. Talk about taking things at face value.

A few days ago at an Employee All Hands, a senior leader described how simply changing the name of one of our products caused some customers to complain about its functionality. The truth is, nothing involving the inner workings of the product had been changed. But hey, the leader explained, perception is reality. The customers' perception of the product, regardless of any technical explanation or justification, is all that matters. That's why product design is so difficult. It's art, but to be interpreted in only one way.

Even when presented with the exact same stimulus, individuals will identify and accept unique perceptions and understandings. Each person interprets the stimulus and surfaces at a different place, and for each person, that is the reality. Just like the dive starting a swim race.

Unfortunately, it's impossible for everyone to perceive the world as we do, or to interpret our words and actions exactly the way we want. So a consolation prize: Say what you mean, mean what you say, hope for the best, and just keep swimming.