First Impression: The Last Impression?

            It is said that the first impression is the last impression. Is it true? Is it true for all times? I have my doubts. Yes, first impression has a great bearing on how the things will progress subsequently but can it really be the last impression? Can there be no change. I feel that would make all inter-personal relationships, all interactions meaningless. At first instance whatever inputs were available an impression was formed… but with flow of more inputs that impression will get modified. Well.. if there are no more inputs thereafter then yes, may be that first impression would never change. But that would be because of the lack of any inputs thereafter and not because that was a ‘permanent’ impression ab-initio. Impressions do change. Perceptions do change. And it is all because of further interactions and exposures. But at the same time it is also true that impressions do not change with every new interaction or input. Registering a new impression or input on a blank slate is pretty easy but to edit that and replace one input with another takes a lot of efforts. And well most of the time we falter here. Newer inputs in general are not allowed to change or modify the existing inputs without any compelling reasons or extra efforts. Probably that is the reason why one concluded that the first impression is the last impression.

            Unless there is a reason and effort that first impression might not change at all. So, even as it is true that one’s perceptions keep on changing based on the inputs and one’s own understanding of those inputs, there is slight practical truth also in the saying the first impression is the last impression. In a majority of cases indeed there might not be reason and an effort enough to register a change. Without an effort, from either end, the first impression might as well turn out to be last one. But then it would be more by default then by design. When we come across someone for the first time a lot of mental processing starts and we register first impressions about a number of things related to his personality. And next time when we meet, that ‘page’ in the memory opens and we see those impressions already there so there is no more processing of the type there was on earlier occasion. We might, at the most, notice a few missing links but will always assess them in relation to the previously noted impressions. Anything not in conformity with the already registered impressions might not get registered here unless there is a conscious and deliberate attempt or the new input is strong and powerful in itself that it gets registered automatically deleting the old files. Thus though the first impression is NOT the last impression, it might end up to be the last impression unless that conscious effort for change is there.