The word, "perspective," has several definitions. I want to talk about the one related to point of view, in particular, how one views the world. A person typically has a perspective of the world based on their personal life experiences. For instance, one might stay up late reading tweets by former US President Trump (although not possible due to recent updates, namely his ban from Twitter), and believe most news outlets write fake news. Then that person may think that everything they know is a lie. This may create a convoluted view of the world in their mind that makes out everything to be untruthful and not real. Of course most humans base their views of the world on many instances not just one. This makes the idea of perspective both complicated and nuanced.
Opinions are opinions are opinions. So much is based on circumstance. If life keeps throwing up lemons, despite the acid, the bitterness comes through, like that of dandelion greens. And even then, some people are warriors. Some people rise to the beatings and overcome the greatest trials. Others weep and wither, shedding the last of their lives in tears and shriveling. From what I remember, Elie Wiesel wrote the book Night about his experience in a death camp during the Holocaust and watched his father whither in front of him. He lost the respect he had for his father. Albeit, this is an extreme example. But it is interesting that some people were able to survive, because it required hope. They were in ungodly circumstances and they had hope. It's not unexpected for people in terrible situations to lose hope; it is unexpected for people who are close to death (literally and literally) to have any hope. Yet, hope they had. Based on my understanding of myself, I would have withered. There's no doubt that if I was permitted to work and wasn't sent directly to a crematorium, I would have died the mental death that led to my physical death.
I visited the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum a couple years ago. It was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany from 1936 to 1945. This was not among the camps Wiesel lived. There were many camps. Visiting the camp and reading books like Night by Wiesel, Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and If This is a Man and The Truce both by Primo Levi, opened my eyes to an unfriendly world. I think of the hull, the carcass of a person that was left when put in horrific scenarios. I think of the frailness of the human. We are influenced and sculpted like butter, sometimes like ice. We will squash or break over independent things from what might influence another person. Some of us were formulated to not care what peers think, while others of us are bent out of shape by every person who seems to dislike us. Some of us seem to be made of grit, but are hurting deep inside. Some of us have smiles written on our faces and everything but smiles in our souls. We put on fronts for all sorts of reasons. Maybe the fakery is the only thing that is keeping someone sane. This is all to say, that humans are complex beings. The idea that we are shaped by our circumstances and experiences only scrapes the surface to address the question, "What is it to be human?" and "How are our perspectives formulated?" I can't begin to understand one single person fully and completely. Attempting to understand the human at large is near impossible. Looking at one aspect of a human is complex enough on its own.
I know for myself there are many factors that influence how I view the world. This includes how I view myself. During times of my life when I felt secure and content, the world around me was solid and made sense. Yet, when I felt lost and overwhelmed, not myself and incomplete, the world seemed like a wild unending carnival ride that went forward and backward and up and down, directionless; senseless. And then of course, how we feel about ourselves is dependent on numerous factors. Those factors are as simple as being hydrated but are as complex as guttural shame.
So I laughed when I was on the phone with my brother and he told me his school had a motivational speaker who claimed to know the cure to depression in a one-off remark. A quick search online shows the humor in this claim. "What is the cure to depression?" typed into the search bar does not procure a one-stop cure-all answer. What works for some does not work for others. Typically, there are multiple routes to take that include many types of treatment. The motivational speaker's cure for depression: "live in the moment." Great. Most people understand depression doesn't allow a person to live in the moment and reminding a person with depression that they should "live in the moment" does not cure the illness that is preventing them from doing that. Goodness, the way our world is simplified into simple Instagram and Pinterest-worthy quotes is silly.
We are complex, yet we fall into the trap of simplifying important ideas that could fill books. Love for example. We say, God is love. Paired side-by-side I can't help thinking this could give people the wrong idea. When I say, "I love pancakes," it doesn't really make any sense. Of course we intend it to mean the love depicted in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. 4:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
And then we see that "God is love" is not enough. It goes deeper than the surface level understanding of love. For example, love "keeps no record of wrongs," seems to indicate an oxymoron. How can a God who judges also keep no record of wrongs? It gets multiplexed.
So we go back to what we started with: perspective. Humans do not understand ourselves, God, or the world fully or completely. We can only understand these things as much as our perspective of these things allows.
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