Perspective...
Lately I have had trouble focusing on my computer. I got new glasses. I could see much better when I drove. I moved my computer... up and down and forward and back... and finally I found the sweet spot that worked with the old computer glasses that my daughter truly wishes would be run over by a truck. But, I am back in business at least for a while.
It is a real surprise to me to be unable to see. I have worn glasses for years, but I could still see without them. Now I am looking for bright light and a magnifying glass even with these expensive no-line trifocals with their expensive prisms designed to focus as much light as possible.
My local book club laughed recently about their mother's and grandmother's progressive lack of sight. Of course, they blamed the specks left on dishes and dust bunnies by the older women on laziness when they were younger, but age has acquainted them with the truth. Their mothers and grandmothers still cared, they just couldn't see what they had missed.
It is all a matter of perspective after all. Sometimes stepping back or examining something closer can really change the way we see things.
Have you ever had the experience of reading something quickly, like a billboard as you pass and wondered why it made such little sense? It happens to me a lot. My eyes don't distinguish detail as well as they might and my brain just fills in what I didn't see. Sometimes it simply doesn't have enough information to guess adequately, sort of like a spell checker that validates spelling but has no context to see if the word actually belongs in that sentence.
I think most of us do that a lot in our lives, not just with the tremendous amount of written material we all scan each day, but with the rest of our lives as well. We glance at life as we pass and our brains register what we expected to see... not always what is really there. If we would just step back and look a little more closely, I think we would often find that things may not be what they seem.
Yet, as a society we pride ourselves on our ability to make snap judgements based on minimal information. Once we have made judgments, we take ownership of them, unwilling to let anyone challenge them.
My fuddled brain may be a blessing after all. I find that I have to take time to look closely or I literally will not see... my brain will invent some altered reality that fits it's limited perception if I don't. I have to take time to think about what I just saw or heard or felt. I have to question the basis of my judgements on a minute by minute basis. And I often find that taking a little more time to look closely greatly changes my perception.
Maybe this inability to step back and take a closer look at things we think we already understand is what is at the heart of the political division that exists in our country today. I know there is a lot more common ground than most people think exists if you just talk about the issues and not the rhetoric. It's as though everyone is seeing through some ideological filter without realizing how much it distorts what they see.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was some kind of magic that would jiggle perspective, just for a while? I'd sure like to see what would happen.
Lately I have had trouble focusing on my computer. I got new glasses. I could see much better when I drove. I moved my computer... up and down and forward and back... and finally I found the sweet spot that worked with the old computer glasses that my daughter truly wishes would be run over by a truck. But, I am back in business at least for a while.
It is a real surprise to me to be unable to see. I have worn glasses for years, but I could still see without them. Now I am looking for bright light and a magnifying glass even with these expensive no-line trifocals with their expensive prisms designed to focus as much light as possible.
My local book club laughed recently about their mother's and grandmother's progressive lack of sight. Of course, they blamed the specks left on dishes and dust bunnies by the older women on laziness when they were younger, but age has acquainted them with the truth. Their mothers and grandmothers still cared, they just couldn't see what they had missed.
It is all a matter of perspective after all. Sometimes stepping back or examining something closer can really change the way we see things.
Have you ever had the experience of reading something quickly, like a billboard as you pass and wondered why it made such little sense? It happens to me a lot. My eyes don't distinguish detail as well as they might and my brain just fills in what I didn't see. Sometimes it simply doesn't have enough information to guess adequately, sort of like a spell checker that validates spelling but has no context to see if the word actually belongs in that sentence.
I think most of us do that a lot in our lives, not just with the tremendous amount of written material we all scan each day, but with the rest of our lives as well. We glance at life as we pass and our brains register what we expected to see... not always what is really there. If we would just step back and look a little more closely, I think we would often find that things may not be what they seem.
Yet, as a society we pride ourselves on our ability to make snap judgements based on minimal information. Once we have made judgments, we take ownership of them, unwilling to let anyone challenge them.
My fuddled brain may be a blessing after all. I find that I have to take time to look closely or I literally will not see... my brain will invent some altered reality that fits it's limited perception if I don't. I have to take time to think about what I just saw or heard or felt. I have to question the basis of my judgements on a minute by minute basis. And I often find that taking a little more time to look closely greatly changes my perception.
Maybe this inability to step back and take a closer look at things we think we already understand is what is at the heart of the political division that exists in our country today. I know there is a lot more common ground than most people think exists if you just talk about the issues and not the rhetoric. It's as though everyone is seeing through some ideological filter without realizing how much it distorts what they see.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was some kind of magic that would jiggle perspective, just for a while? I'd sure like to see what would happen.
posted by Joanne Brayden at 1:39 PM
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