It’s All About Perspective

It’s All About Perspective

Do others see what we do not?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yet, it could possibly be that beauty or truth is already thereonly there's something wrong with our eyes?

Case in point: I don't like to eat fried fish.

Doesn't mean that anything is wrong with fried fish. I know folks who can't get through a Friday without eating some. Especially since restaurants make fried fish the special of the day.

And if it is cheaper and I could get a bargain by ordering it, believe me, I would.

Except for one thing. I am not the proud owner of a gall bladder anymore and fried fish puts me in… let's say… a precarious position, digestion-wise (without the intervention of the miracle of modern medicine.) So, their truth is not my truth.

'Nuff said.

So, fried fish necessarily bad? For everyone else it might be a kick.

Just not for me.

Speaking of not for me… reminds me of the time I went to a doctor about smoking. He started the session (and I may have shared this before) by telling me that smoking was great, that it gave the smoker a sensation of being at ease. Yet, smoking was wonderful… wonderful for EVERYONE ELSE; that is, except me. That's because I had a throat full of polyps from smoking and had to quit. So the doc pointed at me and declared, “For you, it's death.”

I stopped smoking. I trusted someone else's opinion.

Didn't try to disprove him or get my own way about it, or be in denial.

Other folks see things differently than you do, see?

It's all about perspective, don't you know?

Like the time my wife told me she didn't know why an acquaintance of hers was always in a bad mood. I asked her to tell me about the person.

She said her friend lived in a trailer down in Mississippi, with a couple of children and was married to a guy I had no use for.

I told my spouse, “Heck, I would be mad all the time too if I lived in trailer in Mississippi, with a couple of urchins, birthed by a jerk like that.”

End of story, as they say in the movie, 'Fargo.' (I love that flick.) Sometimes it just takes a different perspective to fully appreciate some situations.

I recall some time back that I was not enamored of some forms of contemporary music. Then I sat in on weekly sessions where that type of music was performed, time and time again. I watched the audience, listened to the music, the singers mouthing the words, with an intense sense of belonging and of satisfaction.

Been a fan ever since.

And never would have been so, except that I put myself out to go to the concerts and listen with an open mind to take in the atmosphere and accept what was going on around me without dismissing it out-of-hand.

Others see what we do not. But, we can.

So, when we hear what others think or say or do, listening is okay. You cannot contract any disease by just hearing alternate views. Alternate behavior is another matter entirely.

Because that is where you first have to engage judgment.

Using judgment is like engaging a gear before a vehicle moves in any direction.

The problem with too many these days is that some see their way as the only way, without the filter of actually listening to others, weighing what is discussed and applying judgment.

This infestation is particularly found in the young, or what we call the 'Millennials' and younger age groups coming on.

Or, as G.K. Chesterton observed in his book, 'The Well and the Shadows,' as far back as 1935: “As soon as the quite brainless mob of Bright Young Things discovers that it is really being despised, as a mob of dull old things… there will be a panic. The mass of the immoralists never believed in immorality or in anything else. They never really thought that wrong was right, because they never really thought at all. They merely believed what they were told; that being lawless was the latest thing. If once they hear that there is something later still, even later than the latest, they will rush for it and roll in the mud in front of it.”

And what could be more lawless than being antipolice, anti-life, antiauthority, anti-moral? In short, today the general mob follows what it sees as the 'fashionable' thing. There is no weighing to see if it may be the 'right' thing. Therefore there is 'Certain' Lives Matter, and illegal aliens, Planned Parenthood selling organs from aborted fetuses, 12th century Muslim jihadists slaughtering American citizens, with the Deep State trying to drive a wedge between Americans and their elected officials.

All this is to say that while some may have ideas and hold to truths that are actually valuable or verifiable, others are just unwilling to listen. They are victims of the false narrative, a parallel universe where they are gods and everyone else is supposed to march to beat of their drum.

Unfortunately for them, that is like using the 'New Math.' Where it doesn't matter what answer you get, as long as it FEELS GOOD.

Yeah… that doesn't work either.

This is all the more important because the GREATEST MYTH of all is that we are all marching toward a bold future and that everything is improving all the time.

That is a lie.

For now, we are not so much marching as standing still. For those in the rear are all shouting, “Forward!” in a progressive mode while those in the front lines on the edge of a precipice are crying, “Back!”

The irony of the situation is that everyone has the opinion that mankind SHOULD be marching forward… but the DIRECTION it should be marching is as different as the number of people espousing it.

As a result, we are going nowhere… just marking time.

And if we are only marking time, let us use it wisely by reflecting on why certain matters should remain the same, and which ones should be changed.

And consider what is the purpose of the gate before we decide to take it down.

That gate may be the only thing standing between us and disaster.

By Robert L. Hall