It is said that people who look through keyholes are apt to think that most views they have are shaped like keyholes. Their perspective has been shaped by the object they were seeing through. I remember some years back a very common term was, “Birds of a Feather,” referring to people who have many of the same feelings about and/or the same philosophy of life. It was really a true statement even though it was often used in a derogatory way. We all feel more comfortable when we are associating with people (birds of a feather) who feel the same way we do about the majority of things. When we are with people who have the same or similar perspective on life and things, there is less tension and less likelihood of arguments. We then, are less likely to feel that we are a misfit.
Perspective is really an outgrowth of parental influence, church or religious orientation, and, to some degree, the other institutions and organizations we have been associated with during our growing up process. The educational system in our community, as well as the influence of individual teachers, all may have had an impact on our perspective of life (they were the keyholes we looked through).
That is not to say that an individual never deviates from the perspective they grew up with. Young adults may join the military, or go away to school and be introduced to a whole new way of looking at life. University professors, for example, are commonly found to lean towards a leftist political philosophy and are sometimes prone to be agnostic from a religious perspective. Many of these influences may reshape a person’s view of life and the engines that make it go.
Blaise Pascal has said that, “There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees, which are falsehoods on the other.” Some of us believe that truth is eternal and unchanging, something that always has been, is now, and always will be, the truths which we consider to have come from the creator. Many people’s perspective of truth is that it is relative. They believe it is relative because they have experienced the truth on the other side of the Pyrenees and know that it is different from the truth on this side. I believe most everyone would like to feel that there are eternal, unchanging truths, unlike the relative truths surrounding the Pyrenees. They need a block of knowledge that they can count on and that will give them some mental, and spiritual stability and security. Building one’s life based on relative truths is like building a house on a sandy founda- tion as described in the New Testament. When the storms come (personal problems) the sand is washed away and the house falls. By building one’s house (life) on a foundation of eternal truths it will withstand all of life’s trials and storms and the house will yet be standing. There are those who struggle with and may doubt one truth, however that should not cause them to lose faith in all the other things they believe are true. Too, whether one lives according to the truths they have known or not, does not alter the reality of their truth. Those are life-changing concepts that one should always hold close to his heart. They could prevent his house from falling.
I have always enjoyed being around people who have a little different perspective on life and things. For example Richard Sheridan has said, “Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.”
These people have the mental capacity to see things from different angles all at the same time. The angle that tends to tickle their gray matter will be what will come out of their mouth. Others standing by will ask, ‘where did that come from’?
People should develop their perspective of life based on a solid foundation of truths and logic. Then they can withstand any of life’s problems and will be a stable influence in their family and in their community. A stable person who has a solid perspective, or way of looking at things, will also have a sense of humor and be a fun person to be around. For those people the ‘relative truths’ will be transparent and will have very little lasting influence in their lives. Because their perspective will be a strong rudder guiding them through the maze of relative truths and myriad keyholes.