Relative Something

I am always amazed by the insights I gain from simply getting airborne. When the day is dreary gray down here on the ground, it often feels as if the sunshine doesn’t even exist. When you climb through the clouds and realize how thin they can be and how brilliant the sunshine is on the top side, the difference is startling. Even though we know better, knowing and seeing really are different things. It is amazingly sunny just above that water vapor cloud that materializes overhead.

I noticed something else during my weekend trip to Chicago. On a normal day in my life, I see a very small and predictable number of people. And that gets repeated again and again for days and months. Other than the days I go to the club to play soccer, where I do see a relatively broad number of strangers –over and over each week– I normally just see the small number of people I work with, and my wife at home in the evenings. Being in Chicago over the weekend and using public transportation, walking the streets, going to shows and restaurants and bars, seeing such a wide variety of people, revealed to me how small my world has become of late.

I think it is a good exercise to become aware of such things. We form a lot of opinions based on our perspective of the world, but it behooves us to consider how often our perspective is limited in scope. In that case, it would be wise that we not make our judgments about issues of the world any wider than the actual scope of our perspectives.