A Perspective on Perspective

Perspective is a superpower we all have to immediately shift reality.

If you look under a microscope, you’ll see an alien drama happening all around you. Predator and prey, life and death, kinship and cooperation – a world we walk through, that lives within us.

Zoom out a little further and you’ll find a war that has been raging for millennia in a species older than us. An ant world war with cross continental alliances. Unresolved stories of resilience and destruction all while we walk amongst them.

Even looking within us as individuals, we are born lottery ticket winners. We are conscious actors – you have some daft cousin who woke up a chimpanzee. The fact the you specifically were born is already a long shot. You were born with a first place trophy; unless you’re a younger sibling, in which case, loser.

Look at us in time. An infinite time exists before us and infinitely more time afterwards, yet for a brief moment in the middle we’re all sharing the same space. Us. The fact that you know anyone when you know them is a miracle. There are billions of people you can’t know and, assuming we don’t mess it up, billions more you never will.

Despite Einstein’s retort, this superpower doesn’t allow you to run faster than a speeding bullet. Not the way I’m thinking of it. Perspective bestows upon you a special gratitude. Gratitude doesn’t cure anything or fix problems alone. It frames things, both in dark moments and in light. It says you’re only here for a minute, you’re here now. There’s no scoreboard, nobody is winning or losing. You’re all here, at the same time, for a moment. Feel it for the moment you that can.

Thanks for taking a sip,

Alejandro