"Perspectives on Perspective": Part 1 – Coming up for air

"It’s all about perspective, Rick"

My coaches words echo round my head. Little seeds planted in my sub-conscious mind that keep appearing in different situations and, not surprisingly, perspectives. But why is it that it doesn’t always deliver the same effect? Why am I holding onto a particular outcome of such a fluidic suggestion? The answer, ironically, is again within perspective.

I sat there watching the TV, my coffee is yet to kick in and my morning sluggishness is much more intense than usual. Negativity pervades my mind as I watch the news. Comparison, comparison, comparison to everyone except myself. Magnifying the good in others and reducing the good in myself. Sound familiar? Spiritual seekers have a tendency to be such perfectionists and yet it is usually the thing holding us back the most. Perfection in humanistic terms, the terms drummed into us by the media on overt and subliminal levels daily is a disease rife on this planet, particularly in the modern age. On one hand, it gives us the impetus and drive to push forward into further possibility, but on the other it stifles and suffocates the human spirit. True perfection, the perfection viewed by an enlightened being, is that of absolute fluidity. Ever heard anyone say the real perfection is in the non-perfection?

As my ever regular coffee started to kick in and my biochemical patterns started to re-align to something more familiar, I started moving more towards non-thought. I started to question my own self-doubt. Why am I feeling this way? What is the root of the problem? Am I really not good at anything or is there something incredibly obvious that is eluding my current frame of mind? Without further frustration at my further inadequacy in not getting my perspective right (again, sound familiar? The oh-so familiar ‘Nazi’ ‘I’ that anyone in Higher Balance will have developed to some extent), I became critical of my criticality.

"It’s all about perspective, Rick"

A mandela of knowledge softly exploded almost violently within my consciousness. Like a sponge of compressed knowledge that inflates on contact with water. Applied knowledge. The news presenter on TV, who had only moments before appeared a professional, well-rounded and confident individual was laid bare within my imagination. Suddenly I saw her in all potential aspects, good and bad. That she wasn’t like this by nature, but had learned every last movement, down to the subtle communications in her facial muscles. She had become this by necessity. Survival within the mechanism. She may be successively portraying the desired image, but this image was but a snapshot within her life viewed from the snapshot lives of those watching her. But how many of those people are aware of this level of truth? I suspect hardly any. Fast food media.

It really does all come down to perspective. In our post-modern era, academics continually pout that perspective and truth is relative in their familiar mechanical way. And to large extent, they are right. At least, from that perspective…. :P

What is your perspective as you read these words? Are you even aware of it? If so, then you must ask yourself what that perspective is and if you are satisfied with the first answer that your conditioned mind gives you then you have but entirely missed the point my friend.

Please read on at part two of this article...