Whenever I look at a building from ground level I sometimes envision myself inside the building, looking out and seeing everything in perspective from that view.
In life, sometimes it’s best to see things from different angles and possibly different points of view instead of just focusing on what we generally accept as 2-dimensional.
When a drunk driver, in the middle of a midnight run, accidently hits a child on the side of the road, rarely do we understand from his or her perspective what they are going through after the tragedy has taken place. Instead we typically are more concerned with the child, which isn’t to say that the child shouldn’t be the main focus, it’s just that as human beings we generally lock ourselves into 2-dimensional viewpoints.
We aren’t concerned with the fact that the individual who made this mistake, prior to the incident, lived a life themselves. Statistics might reveal that this person, prior to the occurence, might’ve never had a bad record but none of that matters when rage and emotion takes over. There are no gray areas, just the stark reality of black and white, justice prevailing.
I’ve often wondered that if we were able to see from a different perspective during certain events in our lifetimes that we might’ve seen things more clearly, not necessarily padding our reactions, but gaining a greater perspective on the domino effects of cause and effect.
Understanding that we as human beings make choices in our everyday lives that will change our paths further down the road, for better or worse. When that times comes, when we least expect it, knowing that someone out there might see not only from their perspective but from your own, could lead to less stress and a better understanding of life.
cool post E. not sure my thoughts are related… but for what its worth. melissa was watching oz the other night and came to me and said… in jail, there are some bad people who do bad things, and there are some good people who do bad things, but there is this other class of people who are regular people who just screwup and get lost on the path.… and those are people we should focus some special attention on. anyway…
Kris — I agree with you completely. Good people sometimes do terrible things not out of spite or viciousness, but just from a lack of judgment.
My little league coach, Ted Moore, was hit and killed by a drunk driver early in the morning about 9 years ago. The woman who committed the terrible crime has never apologized or admitted guilt for what she did, and because of this, my good friend Derrick Moore (Ted’s son) has never forgiven her. In a parallel universe, if the woman who killed him had sobbed for days about what happened and repeatedly tried to apologize to Derrick for what happened, he would be more at peace with what event.
So what does this tell us? It says that good people doing terrible, terrible things may still be good people on the inside, but need to find the path again. The tough part is getting back on the train once you’ve fallen off.
Mike, that’s a good point. People don’t have to be bad people. They are probably just as confused, much like the woman who committed the crime, but if they need more time than we the society can give her, then things might go wrong. Dealing with confusion is hard, not only for the victims, but also for the felon.
Good post Erik. Very true and very painful in a sense.
One of the fundamental components of grief, sadness and shock is that they blind us to everyone who is outside the circle of that grief, sadness or shock.
In that moment the other person ceases to be a person, and becomes a faceless thing, and agent of change or destruction that is the enemy.
The challenge we all face in our daily lives is not letting that happen, to push through the pain and outrage and see the face of those around us.
It just occurred to me that, if people drove their thoughts and actions by the line of thinking you describe here, wars would never come to be.
That should be one of the greatest assets to consider on future candidates to American presidency…
Very good post. There are complete assholes in this world who don’t care about anyone but themselves and there are also people in this world who are very very good, yet make 1 mistake that ultimately costs them alot in terms of emotional scarring, physical scarring, mental scarring, and more.
Its very hard for one to look past their emotions in a situation concerning a loved one and try to think of it at a different angle. Obviously different circumstances call for different emotions, like the case of a guy brutally raping a 3 year old. Erik and I both cannot ‘see it from the other angle’ as there really is no other angle.
It would be nice if everyone in the world thought like this post describes, but unfortuntely, that is a pipe dream.
Good post Erik.
Interesting post. I’ve never thought of situations like that before, I’m usually the one worrying about the victim.
I agree with Aaron. I worry about the victim