Perspective — relative, not absolute
The clear definition of perspective is the way we look at something. If that is the case then why do we believe in things without questioning them, like superstitions, religious beliefs and even most of the things that we learn in our school days? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of looking at things in our own way? Doesn’t it mean that we’re losing our own perspective? Is that how we lose our curiosity?
Allow me to present my perspective on some of the events occurring around the world. In the following discussion, I don’t mean to disregard anyone’s feelings or beliefs, nor do I want to classify my justification of thoughts as right or wrong; it is solely a portrayal of my opinions.
People with disabilities are seldom pitied, or worse, frowned upon, by the ones who have a sense of being superior to them. From a different perspective, I see disability as a gift. The world is a beautiful place for a blind person — leave a blind person in the middle of a devastated city and she/he wouldn’t know of the disasters occurred there. Everyone is intellectual for a deaf person — she/he cannot listen to the nuisance of people. People who can’t speak are the smartest — due to the converse of “empty vessels make the most noise”.
There are several severe cases of someone’s perspective becoming absolute and people following that perspective without questioning the grounds for her/his hypothesis. The best examples of such cases, as I believe, are racism and gender discrimination.
Racism appears to me as insecurity, or rather possessiveness, for one’s own land, skin color and behavioral traits, the roots of which emerge from the age of our ancestors. A huge portion of our population has and is suffering from racism. Organizations have been established to oppose racism but it seems improbable to alter the thoughts of everyone with such perspective. These organizations acknowledge that there is something wrong going on and we must take action against it, which is in favor of the sufferers. However, I follow the words of Morgan Freeman who said, “The best way to stop racism is to stop talking about it”. When people are led to believe that there lies a superior race, discrimination happens, dominance happens and eventually, it leads to a fight between racists and the ones against racism. If everyone stops talking about it, there would be nothing left to acknowledge and the next generation would never distinguish others on the basis of appearance. When we view the matter with the perspective of what we are taught by science, skin color is just a consequence of the amount of melanin present in our bodies. Increased melanin prevents skin cancer and protects us from UV rays while leading to a darker shade of skin whereas lighter skin is prone to inflammation and skin diseases. There are certain external stimuli which could boost the production of melanin, like long exposure to sun, hormones, etc. This could result in an inheritance of skin color and so, the family line would follow the same color. On one hand, lighter skin is vulnerable and could be damaged readily, while on the other hand, a darker skin could be a result of this kind of damage. It is highly likely that it all began as one single human race but due to geographical or biological conditions, we have a difference in appearance and that does not seem like a valid reason to judge someone or be derisive. Racism is an excuse for those who could not earn a superior position with their own abilities.
Gender discrimination seems like it might have started by virtue of someone feeling inferior to the opposite gender, for some matter, leading to insecurity of someone else excelling at the matter at hand. However, multiple evidences suggest that a patriarchal society was initiated due to greater physical strength possessed by males than females. That might be the source of such a society, which lead to gender discrimination, owing to the muscular mass of males, resulted by testosterone-induced muscular hypertrophy. But having something greater than others doesn’t allow someone to dominate others. Shouldn’t the person holding the most power be considered the most responsible? Today, the society is led more by knowledge than physical strength and still the discrimination continues, the reason being some people imposed their perspective over others, eventually making it absolute. An argument over this, at the time of its establishment, would be highly unlikely since the ones favored by this decision would not feel the need to question it and the ones suppressed, would not be answered or rather, won’t be allowed to raise questions. But what if the situation had been reversed? Had there been a matriarchal society, would it ensure that the discrimination would discontinue?
In my opinion, a society led by a single race, gender, or any superior being or group of beings would only cause conflicts, dominance, riots and in turn, hatred towards one another.
Let’s have a look at the bigger picture and go by the words that we all might have heard. Patriotism teaches us to forget the bounds of cities and states, and come together as a nation. World peace teaches us to leave discrimination, of any kind, and bounds of countries behind us and move towards a society where all humans are treated as equals. Continuing to this, and going beyond the scope of the world, we see that a solar system is formed when heavenly bodies come together as planets, with a star being responsible for holding them together due to gravity; we see that a galaxy is a unity of many such solar systems; and so on, till there are no bounds left to cross and come together. Matter is said to be distributed evenly across the ever-expanding universe, proving that there is no central authority controlling all the matter there is. If such colossal entities do not feel the urge to form a dominating body, or as a matter of fact, it’s not possible, then why do we need such dominance, caused by discrimination? Why can’t we align our perspective with the way this universe works? What we lack to see is, we don’t have to focus on creating a group of like-minded individuals, it should be a consequence of our methods. Our aim must be to focus just on ourselves. Stop judging, discriminating, fighting with others because every single unit of this big space that we live in, focuses on itself and if its gravitational potential is strong enough, matter just comes around it. Don’t seek the power to control everyone around you, let it happen as an outcome of others seeing potential in you. If this happens with every being, there won’t be anything left to fight for and I believe, that is when we will achieve true peace.
BUT, if we consider discrimination to be wrong and unjust, we are not considering the perspective of the ones who started it. There might be a reason, maybe beyond our understanding, to start all of this, the result of which would not have been predicted by them during their era. Consider a person who has suffered due to poverty and after a lot of struggles, he was able to become as rich as he ever dreamt of becoming. But while fulfilling his dreams, he shattered his personal life and himself became ignorant, which created a dominance of him over others. Can we blame him for choosing money over his relationships? Can we judge his opinions for the matters we considered earlier? We are a reflection of our circumstances. Everyone has fought their own battles, lived their own lives and it’s not fair that we base our judgement on the acts of someone without having a prior knowledge of the reason behind those acts. What if it implies that, in reality, there are no villains, but just broken heroes? It becomes very difficult to judge someone, considering all of this and so, the best thing we could do is, don’t judge. Look how simple it is to not judge someone!
On a different note, your perspective is an important aspect of your success. The math behind it being, curiosity + vision + perspective + perseverance = dreams come true.
If you ever find yourself stuck with a problem, change your perspective and you will definitely come up with a solution. Although, if even after repeatedly changing your methods, the solution seems far-fetched, you can always seek help from others and for them to not find a way to deny, you would have to become a hero, and not a broken one. The only way a person can grow is by being helpful to others.
The purpose of perspective is to explore, empathize, follow new approaches. So before suggesting, judging, or taking any action which affects someone else, think from their perspective, empathize, understand how they would interpret your words or how they would react. According to me, that is the only just way of thinking for/of/about others, because perspective is relative, not absolute.