Matters of Perspective

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. – W.B. Yeats

Where you stand and how you see changes your perspective. Your perception of your life, essentially, is your life. Do you remember the first time you heard your recorded voice? Did you think who is that, is that how I sound to others? Have you ever walked around with your fly down, shirt button wrong, or had a bit of vegetable stuck in your front teeth. When you realized this, you probably thought, how did others see me? What did they think of me? These are all matters of perspective. Sometimes our perspective Open your perceptions of the world to instincts – the inner-vision, and experience the world full of magic right before your eyes.

There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen. – Rumi

Take a few minutes and listen to your world. Enjoy three cleansing breaths and relax. Turn off the judgmental voice in your head and simply be in the sound-space of your daily life. What do you hear? When the sounds float in, one by one, experience them – identify their source and let them drift away. Are the sounds more pleasant than unpleasant? Close your eyes and reach out with your thoughts. What sounds are in the distance? Extend your mind further, beyond the most distant sound you can identify. Imagine what sounds are filling the sky, ten miles away, one hundred miles away. Do you sense a presence with you, as your perspective changes? That is the real world, your natural world calling to your instincts. That is the voice of your ancestors from across Creation.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust

Viewpoint – perspective from which something is considered or evaluated. We all struggle with our viewpoint of the world around us. The viewpoint is critical to writers and artists. Before beginning a painting, you have to decide upon the perspective. Whenever I draw a human face, I begin with the eyes. A drawing is “successful” if I can get the eyes to express the emotions I want to convey. As a writer, establishing the viewpoint of the characters is a schizophrenic process. To create a believable story, you have to create room in your head for multiple viewpoints. To do this successfully, a writer has to be observant, and look with new eyes from the perspective of other’s. In real life, this seeing with the world through another’s eyes is called empathy.

Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another. – Alfred Adler

We share our world with billions of other people. Think for a moment of the mindset of selfish people who think the world is theirs, or that they can take from the world whatever they want. This selfish mindset must change. In 2018 the 26 richest people in the world held as much wealth as half the human population. The number of billionaires have doubled since the global financial crisis of the last decade. But money is not life. Recently I read that these billionaires increased their wealth by over 27% , just from April to July during the pandemic we all are suffering. The number of billionaires also increased, and they are collectively worth well over $10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion dollars). For example the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos increased his fortune by 74 billion dollars in 2020 to $190,000,000,000 (190 billion). Do think most of these super-rich individuals even have the ability to see with the eyes of another, or look upon the world with empathy? Clearly the answer is NO.

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing – Oscar Wilde

We all live in this world. This world of ours does not belong to one special class of people. Do not be envious of the wealthy, for all they have are things money can buy. Maybe we don’t have billions of dollars, but we do have billions of hearts, minds and souls. Our billions of eyes can see the magic in this world, if we change our perspectives once in a while. Let’s begin this voyage of discovery by truly seeing the value of one another’s perspectives. You are in fact – PRICELESS. A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values. – Marcus Aurelius