Dynamic Perspectives: Seeking out New Ways of Viewing the World

Everyone has their own set of beliefs, worldview, and sets of underlying assumptions that they see the world through.  This is like a lens we use to categorize the world with, and through it we develop our opinions of social structures, politics, religion, and the overall meaning of life.  Whether that belief is set-in-stone or if we feel an accurate objective understanding of the meaning of life is impossible and relative, we generally decide what we believe by something that runs deeper in our minds than does relativism or dogma.  This “something” is the maxims within our core universal beliefs which act as guideposts in the maps of our mind and by which we form the rest of our thoughts and opinions around it. We all inherently know that what we believe isn’t the only perspective in the world.  We understand fully that there are other perspectives, and though we may disagree or even dislike them, we understand that on some basic level they have their merit.  In reality, the number of perspectives that exist in the world is infinite, because no two people truly view the world exactly the same.  But common ground is established within societal constructs and collectively agreed upon interpretations of meaning. Our personal knowledge and understanding of the world is, however, not set in stone.  New information and new ways of looking at the world can have transformational impacts causing us to re-evaluate our beliefs and our assumptions about how the world works.  When we read books or seek out knowledge through other means, we have a choice of sticking to our old familiar guideposts or branching out to others that are out of our norm. "One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Most people do not branch out.  Instead they read the same material over and over which only reinforces already established beliefs.  Yet, in order to grow intellectually, we need to be willing to branch out and see things from new perspectives.  It is only by new perspectives that our minds can be truly stretched, enhanced, and empowered. Intentionally choosing to read something from a different perspective than we are used to helps us understand ideas, differences, and cultures that might be different from our own.  It serves as a connector between perspectives as we find commonalities between theories and ideas give us insight to things we never had thought about before. There is also a sense of adventure and discovery that comes with.  We find things that are new and challenging to us, and these things can open up our viewpoint in ways that add new flavor and excitement to life.  This is an act of broadening our perspective.  It can, if we approach it critically, rearrange our viewpoints to an extent -- shake things up and challenge us to reach toward new intellectual heights. Our mind can be closed or open, but in openness is where the riches lie.  An open mind is the way toward luxury of the intellect.