Shopping for Perspectives

I was just thinking about what it would be like, if we could just buy a new perspective whenever it suited us, like buying ourselves a little treat...a gift from self to self. Maybe this is what we attempt to do with our New Year's resolutions. However, there is something of those, that resolutely stinks of the same old perspective, with the reins tightened up...and the fun squeezed out. No room for fun in our quests for self-acceptance. We think that we change, because we started going out running, and eating healthier...but, my inkling is that it is often change without substance....and the same old tyrannies still hold the fort...and rule the roost.

One of my little North-star thoughts, that guides me through times of difficulty, is that my perspective is contingent. Contingent, in that, it could very well be other than it is at that given time. My perspective, for good or for bad, has been forged from the fires of my history (even if how I see things may seem markedly different from the perspective I was born into)...and, another person could easily be in the same situation that I might (hypothetically) find myself in, but they could think about it, perceive it, respond to it, deal with it...in remarkably different ways. There is a whole spectrum of ways in which we could see the very same situation...even our very own situations...our very own immediate surroundings, immediate feelings...the stuff that is going on right here, and right now as you sit at the computer.

I am not really talking about our perspectives on the vast world that exists away from our own little corners, [although, this thought applies to all that too]...but, what really interests me is how we view ourselves...and the multitude of ways in which we could perceive ourselves differently. It is indeed interesting, when we use the variety of other possibilities to be a mirror to ourselves, how it is we are perceiving ourselves. When we take a few moments to think about all the other variety of ways we could look at our lives, and at the decisions we make or don't make, and at our behaviours...we realise, that we could see things radically differently, or even just a little bit differently. And yet, we are often so brilliantly resistant to the possibility of another perspective...we are often glued into place, refusing to allow ourselves a different perspective [with the exception of the New Year's resolution charade, which as I suggested before...keeps the old perspectives firmly in the driving seat].

If we managed a little moment of freedom, in that little rift of multiple possibilities, without feeling too nauseated, we might let our minds wander over the wild vast plains of contingency. We might even feel released, at least for a while, from the ways we often thought we needed to think about ourselves. It often seems to me, that we feel obliged to see ourselves the way we do, as penance for past family crimes [and I am speaking here, to those that feel weighed down...for there are some strange people out there who seem to be completely bouncy with self-empowerment]. Some of us seem to punish ourselves ceaselessly for some strange unspoken crimes against the family...as if the family were the mafia, and we now live in fear of being caught and punished...so in the meantime we give ourselves a little daily does of self-flagellation.

Anyways...fuck all that...all I am wanting to say, is that you could see yourself differently. You could you see yourself as more adequate...more acceptable...more lovable...more desirable...more able...more worthy, than you currently do. And it is infinitely interesting why you happen to be seeing yourself the way you do.


I speak to me, I speak to you.

I dare you to try this out as a little mental stretching exercise.

When you find a position you like...

...just sit in that position for a little while...

...and breathe...

...and enjoy

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust