Perspective

I find it wondrous how much the way we look at our experiences dictates how we feel about them. It really does seem to me that perspective defines reality. When comfortable situations change, if I think that I'm losing something I can feel sad and scared, or even angry. But, when I turn my attention to the beginning that is simultaneously occurring, and allow myself to see what is being offered by it, my emotions become more pleasurable. I can feel happy, anticipatory, and energetic. It is even possible that I could simply accept change as a constant and feel neither happy nor sad, scared nor reassured, but instead feel a cool neutrality. I guess this is the middle way that wise people are always espousing, where extremes (of experience, of temperament, of perspective) are eschewed in favor of moderation.

Sometimes, though, situations and experiences are hard to get a handle on. Sometimes we are so deeply entrenched in our experiences that we cannot see the reality of our place in them. Lately, I have been looking at the changes taking place in my life as being fairly negative, mentally and emotionally struggling hard against them, trying to reject the fact that they are taking place and suffering terribly. I have wanted to just go to sleep for a nice, long stretch and wake up either forward or back in time, either healed of the pain or luxuriating in the bliss that came before it. I haven't been willing to fully acknowledge that it is my perspective on change that is causing me to suffer so immensely. People say that change is good, but I'm finding that it's neither good nor bad, it just is. Change, like a constant river, does flow on and on. But the river has been more like an ocean of waves so gargantuan that they block out the horizon and leave me without a point of reference. I have recently been very disoriented.

Today, I watched streaming video coverage of the full lunar eclipse which was not visible in the US, and made an important observation while staring at the moon for an hour or more. I realized that some things (experiences, ideas, celestial bodies) are so big, we cannot ever get accurate perspective on them. For instance, we can only see the entirety of Earth from hundreds of thousands of miles away, and then we can only perceive part of it. We know from experience that there is another side to what we are seeing- to the Earth from space- for we have at other times been privy to that side as well. But in that moment, all we can see is one side, and it is riveting. That side is not any more important than the side which is beyond our vision, it is merely temporarily illuminated and thus held in the light of greater relevance. But, things will change, unstoppable shifts will take place and we will, once again, be able to view what was so recently in shadow. I see now that my life is like this too.

My life is changing and I don't necessarily like what is currently illuminated or visible. I have believed that I don't know what is in the shadows; what is there that I cannot yet perceive? This has felt frightening. What if there is actually nothing there? But, memory and faith, life experience, reminds me that not only is there something there, but that what is there is nothing new. What lies in the shadows is merely something that was once more readily visible, something I've simply, temporarily, lost sight of, something that was there all along.

I could go with an outdated paradigm, believing that what is not visible is not real, like those who once believed that the world was flat. I could live for a fantasy future, become lost in the idea that what is not yet visible is the answer to all of my troubles. Or, I could begin to adopt the middle way and remain neutral but observant, trusting that all of my experiences are influenced by how I choose to look at them. What I cannot yet see is always the same fullness of life coming back around, spinning toward the light, and it is up to me to deem it positive or negative, or, perhaps most beneficially, simply let it be.