Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves are covered with grass and colorful flowers. Modest tombstones are lost in the greenery. When the sun goes down, the cemetery sparkles with tiny candles. It looks as though the dead are dancing at a children’s ball. Yes, a children’s ball, because the dead are as innocent as children. No matter how brutal life becomes peace always reigns in the cemetery … When [Sabina] felt low, she would get into the car, leave Prague far behind, and walk through one or another of the country cemeteries she loved so well. Against the backdrop of blue hills, they were as beautiful as a lullaby.

For Franz a cemetery was an ugly dump of stones and bones.

Milan Kundera

There is a long passage in The Unbearable Lightness of Being called “A Short Dictionary of Misunderstood Words.” Kundera uses this passage to discuss a number of concepts and phenomena; light and darkness, music, cemeteries, parades, strength, et cetera, which are understood in vastly different and often opposing ways by the characters in his novel. By pointing out the often overlooked disparity of meanings people assign to places, objects or events the reader is provided with a glimpse of how vastly personal human perception and interpretation can be.

Kundera’s prose offers a starting point for my ideas by juxtaposing the differing history and emotional makeup that informs our personal interpretations of the world. A partial understanding, perhaps, of how these disparities arise can be found in the cultural embeddedness of perception itself. As perception is an essential yet often transparent part of our daily existence, I find reflection on its mechanics and and workings an important subject of both scientific and philosophical inquiry.