Interesting. Very interesting…

*runs to Mrs Willetts* Married, two kids… both girls, am I right?*runs down front row, tapping each desk*

sporty, sporty, sporty, sporty… *stops at Madi* has a tendency to run into doors…

*runs to Lucy*ah, here we are… you can see from her mouth she’s hesitant to let her teeth touch together, possibly because she’s worried about the enamel, more likely because they’re sore. That means she’s been clenching her jaw, could be a habit? more likely because she’s been tense.

*making way back to stage*So she’s just had an unenjoyable experience, judging by the books in her bag probably maths…

Sherlock Holmes. According to himself, the epitome of what a person should be. Master of deduction, always the cleverest person in the room, able to work out any riddle or solve any puzzle, without the help of anyone or anything. According to others, an irritating, bigheaded egotist who is too self absorbed to care about anything but his own “superior” intelligence.

Perception means everything. It is the difference between love and hate, beauty and ugliness, intelligence and stupidity. Think about yourself. What do you like or dislike about yourself in particular? This is just one perception of who you are – your own. The real challenge is looking beyond your personal viewpoints and seeing who you really are through the perception of everyone around you. Sherlock was able to step out of his comfort zone and begin to recognize himself as being just as human as everyone else. We all have our own challenges with perception that we need to overcome in order to accept ourselves for the way we are.

What is reality? Is there just one truth? Or are there multiple truths influenced by perceptions that people believe to be true? The answer to these is that there are many different truths. This is because we are all different people and therefore have different opinions. This is shown in Sherlock through the many varied perceptions people had of him. Detective Inspector Lestrade, the chief of police, admitted that he needed Sherlock to help solve cases, that he was a great man and someday may even be a good one. Most of the junior police officers found him a great irritation to work with. His housekeeper saw him as the son she never had. And lastly, his best friend, Dr John Watson, saw him as the best man and most human human that he had ever known. So, a wide variety of opinions. You may have noticed, the closer a person was to Sherlock the more positively they thought of him. This relates to us in our lives too. The people who don’t like you are most often the people that don’t know you enough to see your true personality. Everyone sees different aspects of your personality, so they will all have slightly different perceptions of you that are all in a way, true. Sherlock was able to hold in his mind multiple possible truths, clues to solving mysteries. We

need to challenge ourselves to entertain multiple beliefs therefore finding our own identity.

Sherlock believed himself to be a “high-functioning sociopath”, which to quote the dictionary is a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. This belief is partly true as he frequently hurt others feelings through his tactless deductions, broke rules and put himself above others. He also believed himself to be free of any emotional sentimentality, and I quote “Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side.” But there is an alternative truth to Sherlock and he stepped out of his comfort zone to recognize himself as essentially being just human. Firstly, he had a close friendship with John Watson, suggesting he was not completely antisocial. Secondly, he was able to learn that others have feelings and he was prepared to change what he said as his awareness of other people’s feelings grew. I could bore you with endless examples proving this, but I won’t because I too am developing my social conscience.

Our beliefs in ourselves are dictated by our perception of ourselves that we hold to be true. They are individual beliefs and therefore can be changed. Have you ever had a first impression of someone that turned out to be completely false? My guess is you have. You can change your beliefs about yourself, just like you can change your beliefs about others. This is a challenge for all of us, but especially teens. This is a time where we will grow into our identity, question our beliefs about ourselves and others. We learn to look past the negative beliefs and accept other peoples positive opinions of us and integrate this into our own beliefs about ourselves which is hard to do. Sherlock’s challenge is to see himself as a human being, and not a superior sociopath. My personal challenge is somewhat opposite to that of Sherlock’s. Where Sherlock sees himself as a superior being and criticizes others, I tend to focus on my failings as the truth rather than my strengths, and I need to step out of my comfort zone to accept myself for these strengths. This challenge goes out to all of you as well to step out of your comfort zones and look at the truth you see about yourselves and be receptive to other possible truths about you. This means you can grow as multi-dimensional individuals who can recognize the positives in yourselves as well as the areas you need to develop.

Sherlock Holmes once said, “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.” But I say, no I challenge you, to entertain all the factors, and together this makes the truth.