Yesterday morning, my friend Ethan was reflecting on a perspective he used to have for life: “Live a good story.” This perspective helped him to explore, to wander. It led him to some interesting places, such as biking across the country.
This perspective, though, was ultimately limited. Sometimes, I don’t want to be living a good story. Sometimes, I just want to get to work on time.
Clowning has been similar for me. For many days in the past two years, I’ve donned a clown nose and a full clown outfit. Now, though, I see clowning primarily as a tool. If I need more play and serendipity in my life, I’ll put on the clown clothes. But sometimes, I just want to do errands without interacting with people.
Clowning is one perspective on reality. Living a good story is another perspective. They can both be useful. Yet no one perspective fully captures reality.
I read Ethan this poem:
As the poem suggests, no one perspective encapsulates all of reality. No one view will stand up to a chicken’s guts.
So what do we do?
The answer, I think, is to develop a collection of useful perspectives, like tools in a toolbox. Wisdom is the capacity to find the right tool or perspective for the right situation.
As we grow older and wiser, we grow both in our number of perspectives, and in our ability to skillfully apply the right perspective to the right context. We try perspectives on for size. Some don’t work for us. Others may help us so much that we keep them on all day, every day, for years.
Yet, with every perspective, there comes a point when we’ve learned all we have to learn for the time being, and we take off the lens we’ve been wearing, ready to try on a new way of seeing the world.
danscreativeoulet 