A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Very often, I find myself thinking about the fact that everything we think and see and do depends on how we look at things, and how we look at things grows out of ideas we've absorbed from our culture, our temperament, how we were raised and what our experience has been. We use those things to determine truth, which is filtered and measured against all that we already are. This is why two people can look at the same thing and come to opposite conclusions about it. In a sense, we are only our opinions. None of us has access to Truth with a capital T.

     One more time, I wonder how any of us understand each other and why we don't get into more trouble because of misunderstanding. Well, we do get into a fair amount of it. There are many religions in the world with their individual perspectives and we all know the devastation the clash of these perspectives, these opinions produce. People find a perspective, often a received perspective, and cling to it because it's so much easier than having to figure out the world on your own. People need to be sure they have the right perspective and will sometimes go to any length to defend it and make other people believe it.

     There is often a clash of perspective between two people. Most of us don't like to be challenged - we get defensive or dig ourselves in even more. Sometimes, there simply is no way across the gulf of clashing opinions. But usually, unless we're rigidly stuck in our egos, we can talk through our differences and reach some kind of understanding.

     But even though the fact that we make our own truths leads to many of the world's most intractable problems, it also means that we can arrive at new truths. We can look at things from a new perspective. We can learn. We can change our minds. For years, the fight for civil rights, womens rights and gay rights existed on the edges of our culture. But little by little, those movements grew until a majority of people found a new perspective. They changed their minds. 

     It seems ridiculous to point out that we can change our minds, that we can grow. But in the most profound sense, it's our glory. It's what enables us to transcend our fears and doubts. It's what enables us to expand our consciousness.