Across the miles

If you’ve been following along this week, you know that Monday’s post took a really deep dive into the subject of perspective. I mean, everyone’s heard the saying “what you see is what you get,” but that quote from Marcus Aurelius was kind of next-level.

If there are no facts, and there are no truths, what are there?

Better yet, WHY would you spend years of your life in classrooms in which those two things are the plat du jour?

Before you go demanding refunds for hard-earned degrees from lofty places, remember….you are the one still paying them. They literally can’t refund you.

Sorry, couldn’t resist. But seriously…the fancy paper was worth it. Hopefully, anyway.

At its best, education is not about telling you what to think, but teaching you how to. It should do this by introducing you to a diverse array of perspectives on individual topics, so you can listen, learn, and decide what sounds true to you…which is going to be different than what sounds true to someone else.

Your truths will be different. So, who’s right?

Well, to you, you’re right. To them, they’re right. Someone else may see it your way, and yet another person sees it the other way. Or, another way completely.

Complicated. <<Sigh.>>

But only, really, if you insist there has to be one way. You’re both describing things exactly as they seem from your perspective. No one’s lying. So, is everyone right? Or worse, are we all wrong?

Yes, and yes, and also, it depends. Rather than battle them about why they should step into your view, why not take a second to try on theirs? You don’t have to stay there. Just visit for a minute. No matter how much disdain you might feel for their opinions, you can still try it. In fact, the farther your own patch of ideas is from theirs, the more interesting the layover might be.

At the very least, you’ll learn something, and probably not just about them.

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.” – Anäis Nin/Talmud

Photo credit: Pablo Garcia Sandaña