Part 1: Where is Your Perspective Point?

“My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.”

~ Marcel Proust

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Quite a few years ago in meditation I asked a question regarding all the arguments and disagreements in this world that lead to much confusion, anger, judgment and sometimes even war. In response to my question, I received a graphic, literally including visuals, that explained why this happens.

It is so simple once you get it; I was stunned. After seeing and hearing this, I immediately stopped the judgmental thoughts about others that had plagued me my entire life. In one fell swoop, I saw why; I understood and suddenly I was flooded with compassion for all of us … absolutely everyone. I have not been the same person since that day, thankfully.

To sum it up in a tidy little package, I could say that our perspective is the sum total of all our life experiences (our exposure to the world and life, with all that brings) and is amplified by what we have learned and understood, and how we have interpreted or assigned meaning to events, situations or circumstances. The other ingredient that goes into the mix is what we brought with us into this life when we were B’earthed … born on earth in a human body. 

I know that may sound a little weird to you, but I’m also certain that you know what I mean. We have all seen children who were “wise beyond their years.” They had not been exposed to, nor did they inherit tendencies from their parents that are undeniably present in them. Sometimes they have inexplicable skills or maybe memories that are verifiable from a past life. We all arrive here as unique little beings and then we build on that. As a result, it turns out that no two people have exactly the same perspective on all topics, nor can they. Every being merges with the sum total of their experiences to form their perspective at any given moment. To top it off, our perspective is influenced every single day by new experiences, new information, new learning. All this is integrated through the lens of emotional responses, the lens of cognitive understanding, through the heart (love and compassion), or a unique combination of all of these. Variety is the flavor of the day … times almost eight billion people!

Allow me to, ahem … illustrate.     

Let’s say these triangles represent four different people. Each person’s triangle represents them and it holds everything they know and have experienced, including their interpretations and meaning they have assigned to it all.

Person A might be a child or someone with relatively little education and exposure to the world.

Person B has had more exposure and maybe more education than A.

Person C has had even broader exposure to life experiences and education than either A or B. Due to their broader baseline, it could be said that this person knows a little about a lot of topics.

Person D has focused deeper, either intentionally or just by coincidence of life circumstances, on just a few topics, creating less breadth of knowledge and understanding, but greater depth on the topics that are known.

Notice that we all start at the same base line, being human. The size and shape of our triangle is determined in part by our family, our culture, our experiences and education as well as the meaning we give to these things. 

When these triangles or people do not touch or overlap, they have nothing in common except their baseline of humanness. But what happens if they overlap? Therein lies what they have in common … and all that white area is what is different about them. Can D understand the parts of C that are not shared? It’s not likely, as none of that has been part of D’s experience, exposure or education, and the reverse must also be true that C cannot understand the parts of D that are not shared. It gets more complex the more are people involved.

Can you see that if all you know is what’s inside your triangle, that you cannot possibly understand what is outside your triangle? Let’s apply the school metaphor. If you are in kindergarten, you cannot yet know what the college graduate knows …  and that’s okay. It’s just where you are right now. You have time and the ability to grow and expand … to move your point of view or perspective. In fact, it is one of our greatest privileges, to be able to choose our perspective point and do the work to get there! 

Certainly the large triangle, the college graduate in this example, can see that others have not yet had as much exposure to life or learning, and so they feel compassion and understanding for the smaller triangles, rather than judgment. They just don’t know yet; they cannot know yet. They are newer to this whole journey!

I feel compelled to point out that two beings of equal size may have very little or possibly nothing in common. The interests, exposures and education simply lie in different directions, so the same needs to be applied here … Compassion and Allowing. And it’s important to remember that all triangles share, at the very minimum, their humanness. 

We stand on the peak of our own triangle to view the world, with everything inside our triangle acting as our foundation for understanding, wisdom and compassion. 

What every person believes is true IS actually true for them, based on what they know. Others know differently and therefore, their truth is different. So this is a bit weird! Am I saying that everything is true? Yes, kind of … it’s complicated, and yet so simple. We only know what we know and that makes our conclusions true for us. What’s important is not to argue over what is true, but to know that for every person, what they believe is true actually is true for them at this moment in their evolution. 

Arguing will not help, blame will not help. Domination and wars can't help.  

We must hold compassion for ourselves and others, knowing that we're all in a process of growth and learning, and that we are all at our own unique stages, and that truth is necessarily relative to perspective.  

And as I mentioned earlier, we have time and the ability to grow and expand … to move our point of view or perspective. In fact, it is one of our greatest privileges, to be able to choose our perspective point and do the work to get there! In the meantime, we must have patience and compassion for ourselves and each other, with special emphasis on remembering that our common ground is our humanness.  

Our differences are built into the system, so we must accept that this is the case … until it isn’t.

But that’s a story for another day.

Stay tuned for Part Two of the teachings delivered through this meditation many years ago.

Do you have thoughts on this? If so, sound off in the comments.