Key to your perception is your perspective. Where you are located in the Universe and the ways you interpret what you are experiencing in the Universe are unique yet partial. As an aspect of the Universe, you will likely never be able to perceive the entirety of it. Instead, you can come to valid yet partial perspectives on the Universe, which can be compared and contrasted with another valid yet partial perspective to gain a greater understanding of the Universe.
Bad news and good news can be drawn from this. No matter how well-trained you are at understanding and expressing your perspective, it will never be 100% reflective of the Universe. Thus, it will always be, in part, wrong. Conversely, no other perspective, regardless of how stupid it may seem, will be 100% wrong. The challenge becomes how to take on multiple perspectives to integrate where they are valid while being mindful of how partial they are to build greater understanding.
Consciously gathering different ways of looking at things is the skill of active perspectiving. Active perspectiving can be done in two ways. The first is to imagine what it would be like to have a different perspective on a situation and assume that as your first-person experience for a time. The second is to engage with others directly, asking them about their perspective to try to understand it.
As an introductory exercise to hone your skills in this area, when looking at a situation involving multiple humans, try to look at the situation through each person’s perspective. Start with your perspective, trying to really explain how you perceive the situation. Next, try to assume the perspective of each of the other humans involved, taking into account their physical, emotional, and mental experiences. Finally, try to look at the situation from an external observer, simply looking at you all as objects and how you interact. See how this process changes your perspective on the situation. Then, consider talking to the individuals involved to get a sense of their actual perspective and how that can be integrated into your perspective.
When looking at systems generally, human or inanimate, try this same exercise. Try to see the system from the perspective of each of its parts. Then, try to shift perspectives into that of the system as a whole and how its perspective will be very different from that of any single part within it.
One of the false assumptions common to trying to see from the perspective of each part of a system is to think that all parts have equal weight to the system that emerges. If there are five parts to a system, the simple, easy assumption is that each part contributes 20%. However, in many cases, one to two parts of the system will contribute the vast majority of the actual output, with the other components contributing less but still being necessary. A single wire out of place on a plane will make it inoperable, but investing $10,000 in finding the best wire imaginable will do very little to increase the output of that plane. Learning to see and appreciate the perspective and contribution of each part of the system and getting a sense of their scale of contribution to the system will show where the system can be improved or disabled as needed.
A side effect of shifting perspective will be an increased awareness of how aspects of one dimension affect other dimensions. This is especially common in trying to see individuals’ physical, emotional, and mental experiences and how they contribute to their perspective. Decreased mental performance may be due to increased physical discomfort. Emotional outbursts may arise from mental frustrations.
At first, shifting perspective will require a good deal of effort. You must learn how to disentangle yourself from attachment to your perspective. You will need to build skills at seeing from other perspectives well. You must learn which perspectives have more significant and lesser value in a given context. Once these skills are developed and practiced, however, one can rapidly cascade through them, giving you more significant insights from which to take action.
Orienting by Desire: Using the Tools
Take the recent iteration of your Visions and pick one with multiple components involved. How will achieving this Vision affect your other dimensions? How will it affect the systems that you are a part of? Try to consciously look at the achievement of this Vision from these other perspectives using the strategy outlined above. How does this impact your sense of your Vision? Now, re-write your Vision based on your insights.
Setemheb 