We all live in our own reality tunnels, and become accustomed to thinking that the way we see things is how they are ‘in reality’. So much so, that often it’s disconcerting – sometimes even shocking – when we suddenly see things from a new perspective. Take for instance, how a hula hoop sees the world…
This commitment to thinking outside the box is one of the driving forces behind this website – asking ourselves ‘what if’ questions regarding our own beliefs, and the assumptions made in the current scientific and historical paradigm, and trying to inspire new ways of thinking about certain topics. Sometimes, that can take you down dead end streets, and other times it can bring wonderful insights. But at the end of the day, the important thing is that we don’t isolate ourselves in our own reality tunnels, and definitely don’t force others to live in there with us.
Here’s the great physicist Richard Feynman (in the 1970s) on taking the world from a new point of view:
By ‘getting outside’ your normal point of view you are able to challenge, and perhaps overthrow if necessary, long in-grained beliefs. By getting outside your normal point of view you get new insights that may lead to new discoveries and ways of being. And perhaps most importantly, by getting outside your normal point of view you are able to see things from others’ perspective, and thus treat them with the individual dignity and respect that each of them deserves (h/t’s to Manjit Kumar’s website and this NPR article).
