Perspective

By
Marc Olmsted
on May 16, 2008 6:49 AM | | Comments (2)

halfglassfull.jpg

If you take the almost full glass on the top left, and hold it just so, right next to your eye, it will seem to you indistinguishable from a glass half-full. (Try this at home.) This is to say that  if you look at a situation too closely, obsessively, focusing on what you don't have yet, you can easily be forget to see how much you do have.

 

See what those Chinese soldiers have in their hands?  That's right, monks' robes.  How easy it has been for the Chinese population to believe unquestioningly the endlessly relooped scenes of monks violently ramapaging in Tibet.  Isn't it interesting that cameras were so well positioned to capture it?  Doesn't it seem eminently logical that China would foment unrest as an excuse to make sure the real monks would be incarcerated during the Olympics?  (It's already been forgotten in the news cycle.) Yellow robes do not a monk make.  Question what you see.

 

Finally, I pass a parking sign every day, and yesterday, for the first time, I noticed that grass was growing all the way up inside the pole.  It's not very pretty grass, but it is amazingly tall.  With very little light, it has managed to work its way 10 feet or so toward the sky. I can either see it as ugly overgrowth, or a will to survive in extremely inhospitable circumstances.

 

Take a good look at what you see today. Be willing to see things differently, to question, to alter your perspective. Everything can be interesting, and nothing is always just only as it appears.

 

MCO 2008

 

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2 Comments

By Sheria on May 16, 2008 3:10 PM

I was all set to make some philosophical commentary on your observations about perception and reality until I read Mary's comment and your response and realized that the topic was really about sex. Which just goes to show you that perception is not necessarily reality, because I initially didn't think about sex at all when I read this. In the act of reading this post, and the comments, I've altered my perspective.

I definitely am in the camp that sexual attraction is enhanced by intellectual stimulation. I find it possible to have an initial rush of attraction that is more accurately called lust strictly based on external characteristics but if there is no intellectual stimulation, an exchange of ideas and perspectives, then I quickly lose interest. A partner who lacks intellectual curiosity most likely lacks the creativity to make the sexual realtionship more than mundane. I definitely think that it is a promising aspect of your relationship with G that you are turned on by his intellectual curiosity as well as by his dashing appearance.

By Marc OlmstedAuthor Profile Page on May 16, 2008 3:50 PM

For anyone confused by Sheria's comment, I simulblog on AOL, the same content, and Sheria reads me there first, then duplicates her comment here. She was reacting to this comment by Mary, over there, that read:
Comment from frankandmary | Email frankandmary
Ok, this may seem off topic, but I don't think it is. I was speaking with someone who believes dumb guys are better in bed, but I think intellect is a definite erotic asset. She thought about it, called me back & agreed :-).
I have a book altering my perspective right now: Compassionate Action by Chatral Rinpoche( a Tibetan Yogi)

and although I didn't quite get how my entry correlated to her thought, I did fess up that Mary seemed to have a case of ESP going, because on my mind was how sexy I found the mind of the new man from Tennessee.
THERE.