Perception is reality

We mouth this sort of platitude all the time and then happily go back to assuming everyone sees the world the same way we do. Every once in a while, some innocuous event comes along that allows us to see this more clearly. I had one of those moments last week and it's struck some kind of chord.

My moment occurred last weekend when I had to borrow the Civic to run an errand involving jumper cables (I don't have jumpers yet in the new car, I was also going to a muddy shipping yard and so on). What an amazing difference eight weeks made. I'd driven the Honda for several years and had established a certain view of the car based entirely on perception. The drivers space had seemed relatively comfy and even somewhat close, given the dimensions of the car.

All that went out the window last week. After spending so much time in the still spacious Mustang cockpit, going back felt drastically different. The headroom (always a problem) was really annoying and there was a sense of the drivers space being too large and open. There was also a slight problem with the clutch. My left foot just sort of automatically settled on a peddle and it didn't feel right. I had to look down to remind myself that there were only two peddles in the car. My view of the drivers experience in a Civic has been altered forever and even though my mind was fighting to reconstitute what was, I was left with what is (as perceived by my low quality perception engine).

All of this only makes it easier to understand the feelings of the canyon crawlers who worship the Miata (rightfully so, given their world view). As a result, they think the 'Stang cockpit is a lot like being tossed into a badly fitting washtub. My new project vehicle would have them breaking out in hives.